The accounting issue overshadowed the company’s overall performance for the third quarter, which showed continued declines in conventional phone gear but sequential gains in wireless equipment sales.
For the third quarter ended September 30, Nortel reported a small profit of $179 million on revenue of $2.27 billion. The sales were broken down as follows: Wireless Networks revenue ($1.01 billion), Enterprise Networks revenue ($579 million), Wireline Networks revenue ($440 million), and Optical Networks revenue ($245 million).
In the same period last year, Nortel reported a net loss of $1.8 billion, on sales of $2.36 billion. It should be remembered however that these figures are subject to change, after the results of the restatement are known.
The restatement follows a previously announced review of assets and liabilities. The main elements will be the elimination of about $900 million of liabilities, and reducing losses from 2000 to 2002.
During those two years, it reported a combined net loss of $31 billion. Additionally, the Toronto-based company once employed 95,000, but has cut about 60,000 jobs. It has also reduced its facilities from just over 700 sites to about 250.
On a brighter note it expects revenue for the fourth quarter of 2003 to grow sequentially compared to the third quarter, and it expects a profit for the full year 2003.
This article was based on material originally published by ComputerWire.
