Northern Telecom Ltd and Lagardere Groupe-owned Matra Communication SA reported 1994 revenues of equivalent to $1,360m, exactly one third of which came from outside France. While the company indicated that the biggest share of its revenues, 28.4%, came from the sale of fixed and mobile telephone terminals, it disclosed nothing of the group’s profitability or even revenue increase. As a manufacturer of telephone terminals, Matra says it is the market leader in France and number three in Europe, accounting for annual production of 4m units. Its second most important activity last year was the enterprise networks and communications, which made up 27.2% of the total, or the equivalent of $370m. In its home market, Matra has grown its share to 30% last year from 10% in 1988, the company said. The volume of its international sales in this sector, it said, were up 21% in 1994, with big systems realised for Danish Social Security, Elf Aquitaine’s network in Africa and Europe, among others. Public switching revenues, which is handled by Matra’s 50-50 joint venture with L M Ericsson Telefon AB, MET Commutation, was the third-largest activity, with 22.3%, or $300m sales. Matra noted that 1994 marked the end of a period of adapting Ericsson’s AXE 10 switch to the French network, and that, in turn, MET Commutation became Ericsson’s major supplier of central exchanges. Mobile communications networks, which it provides in partnership with Northern Telecom, accounted for 14.2% of its total sales, and include both analogue and digital equipment. Multimedia products and services, including MPEG2 decoders, D2MAC systems integration and an ISDN-based video personal computer, comprised 2% of total revenues. The company noted that it operates five research and development centres in France, Germany and Spain; five manufacturing sites in France and Germany and two customer service centres, one being in Germany.
