Commenting on Equant’s results, Didier Delepine, president and chief executive officer, said: Three months into our merger, we are on our way to achieving the operational and financial targets for the year that we established for the merged entities. Despite the general economic conditions, orders and revenue growth for our network services continue to be strong, if below the record levels achieved recently. Multinational Corporations continue to demand the high-end, managed global services that are critical to their businesses.
Our integration program is moving ahead rapidly. As part of the overall reduction in employment we have already announced that 1,500 positions will be cut from the Company by the end of this year. We have integrated the two sales forces, reducing the number of sales employees by over 400, as part of that integration process. In addition we have closed sales offices in 10 under-performing countries while improving our customer-facing capabilities.
Our 2001 revenue guidance of $3.1 billion remains unchanged, as does our forecast of turning EBITDA positive during the fourth quarter.
Order intake for network services for Classic Equant was $333 million in the third quarter 2001. As indicated at the Company’s investor meeting on October 1 the order book for the new company will only be available in 2002.
The company’s revenues this quarter were $760 million, an increase of 24.5 percent compared with the third quarter 2000.
Revenues for the merged entities from netword services increased 8.1 percent to $388.9 million this quarter, driven by the continuing deman for advanced, high-speed data network services such as frame relay and Internet Protocol (IP). The growth rate reflects the addition of the lower growth Global One contracts to the Classic Equant base.
Revenues from SITA were $185.3 million this quarter compared with $82.1 million for the comparative quarter. This increase reflects the new contractual arrangements with SITA. As is normal with these types of contracts, costs slightly exceed revenues in the early periods.
Revenues from integration and managed services decreased 3.0 percent to $126.5 million this quarter, as fulfillment revenues continued to decline reflecting the general economic downturn and the lower sales reported by hardware infrastructure manufacturers.
Other services include circuit-switched voice and revenue from France Telecom affiliates of approximately $21 million.
