Nortel Q2 losses top $100m

Chief executive expects low single digit growth for full year but no further job cuts

Vendor Nortel saw its quarterly losses treble year-on-year to top the $100m mark as Q2 2008 revenues rose two per cent.

Revenue for the quarter was up two per cent to $2.62bn (£1.32bn) while net loss widened to $113m from $37m over the same period last year. Contributing to the heavy loss was a $67m restructuring charge.

Nortel is predicting 2008 full-year revenues will display low single digit growth on 2007 figures. Chief executive Mike Zafirovski has indicated he did not foresee any more job cuts beyond the planned loss of 2,100 which was announced earlier this year.

He said: "In the second quarter, the company focused on the work at hand and improved productivity, stepped-up cost reduction activities and enhanced margin performance.

"We continue to see strong customer momentum in key growth areas of our business. In recent months, we have signed a comprehensive global managed services telepresence agreement with Deloitte, have secured approximately 20 wins for our innovative 40G offering, and earlier this week signed on as the official network infrastructure partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

"In the second half, faced with a challenging business environment, we will continue our focus on execution and on delivering accelerated growth in key segments in order to achieve our financial objectives for the year."