Alcatel-Lucent ANZ net profit halves to AU$16.4m

Alcatel-Lucent has reported its Australian and New Zealand financial results for the 12 months ending December 31, 2015, revealing that its net profit almost halved, down by 48.6 percent from AU$31.79 million to just AU$16.35 million.

The results, filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), showed its total comprehensive income for the year also halved, from AU$32.77 million down to AU$15.86 million.

Consolidated sales revenue from goods was up by 83.9 percent, however, from AU$229.34 million to AU$423.98 million, while sales revenue from services was AU$249.49 million, down 6 percent from the AU$265.08 million reported for 2014.

The cost of sales also grew, from AU$376.09 million up to AU$587.86 million.

Net assets stood at AU$77.29 million, down 6.8 percent from the AU$82.92 million reported a year earlier. Cash and cash equivalents were 20.3 percent higher, at AU$285.81 million as of the end of December.

Alcatel-Lucent paid income tax of AU$12.89 million during the financial year, after being revealed by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in December last year to have not paid any tax during the 2013-14 income year.

The company noted that for its Australian and New Zealand business, it largely relies on sales through telecommunications giant Telstra as well as the company rolling out Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN).

"A significant volume of Alcatel-Lucent Australia Limited's sales are generated from Telstra Corporation Limited, NCSI Australia Pty Ltd, and NBN Company Ltd," Alcatel-Lucent said.

"The company and consolidated group is dependent on the continued support, through technology and equipment channels, as well as intercompany funding from the ultimate parent entity and its subsidiaries."

Alcatel-Lucent -- now Nokia after the latter's €15.6 billion acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, which completed this year -- provides much of the equipment and fibre technology for NBN's multi-technology mix rollout.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield revealed in December last year that Alcatel-Lucent had delivered more than 4,700 nodes to be used in the fibre-to-the-node (FttN) rollout during early 2016, with 200 nodes being shipped every day to construction locations.

In October last year, Alcatel-Lucent and NBN also announced that a trial of G.fast fibre-to-the-basement (FttB) technology had attained throughput speeds of 800Mbps.

NBN used Alcatel-Lucent's G.fast equipment -- specifically, the 7368 Intelligent Service Access Manager (ISAM) Optical Network Terminals, 7368 ISAM CPE with integrated reverse power, and 5520 Access Management System -- for the trial.

NBN could in future also make use of Nokia's XG-Fast technology for its fibre-to-the-distribution-point (FttDP) network, which it has shown is capable of delivering 11Gbps over a 50-metre run on two bonded pairs of Category 6 cable under laboratory conditions during a trial with Deutsche Telekom.