ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Agere Systems Inc. today reported a 2.6% sequential increase in revenues to $551 million for the company's second fiscal quarter, ended March 31, from $565 million in the prior three-month period.
The former chip operation of Lucent Technologies Inc. reported a net loss of $219 million in the quarter, including $24 million in restructuring and severe charges and $176 million in acquisition charges as well as a gain of $243 million on the sale of its FPGA business to Lattice Semiconductor Corp. (see Dec. 10 story).
Agere's revenues were higher than its previous estimate, and its pro-forma net loss (excluding one-time items) was $246 million, an improvement over pro-forma loss of $282 million in the prior quarter, ended Dec. 31. Agere's pro-forma loss of $0.15 per share was better than Wall Street's consensus of $0.16 per share, based on a survey by First Call/Thomson Financial.
"We are pleased to report our first quarter of sequential revenue growth in six quarters," said John Dickson, president and CEO of Agere Systems. "We are also excited that we are now taking our final steps toward full separation from Lucent, which we believe will benefit our business, our employees and our customers," he said, referring to the expected final spin-off of Lucent's stake in Agere on June 1.
"With the actions we are taking to improve our performance, we believe we are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities ahead," Dickson stated.
Agere has made huge cuts and decided to dramatically reduce its internal manufacturing capacity as it struggled with losses last year. The last major round of cuts eliminated 950 jobs and realigned the company's operations into two business units (see Dec. 5 story).
In the current quarter, ending in June, Agere said it expects that both revenues and pro-forma net loss per share will be flat-to-slightly improved from the just-ended period. The pro-forma net loss per share includes certain costs related to facilities consolidation, said the Allentown-based company.
