Alcatel reported its first-quarter net loss narrowed to EUR 461 million. The company said its revenues fell 31 percent to EUR 2.961 billion while operating losses narrowed to EUR 161 million, thanks to improved profitability at its fixed and mobile communications units. Commenting on Alcatel's outlook, chief executive officer Serge Tchuruk said: "The carrier markets continue to be soft and the economic and geopolitical environmental may add a few points to the 15% degradation (in Euro) which we had forecast earlier for 2003. The non-carrier market should resist better but for the same reasons may be a few points off from the expected stagnation. Overall we still expect the market in the second half of 2003 to be comparable to last year, at a constant exchange rate, with the first half absorbing the full year-on-year decline."
