Earnings season is back

Earnings season is back.

The fortunes of telecom vendors were quite different: hot for some (Motorola, Tellabs, Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, or SA,..), rosy for few (Lucent, Juniper, ..), or really bitter for few others (Adtran, Foundry, TCL comms, ..). But what can be understood is that heavyweights have done very well in 1Q05. Revenues are jumping about15% on average, while average net income is growing some 20%+ in the quarter.

Let Ericsson CEO say: “It’s a good start to the year” , but he remains cautious forthe future: “we forecast slight market growth”.

The situation for operators is different. Heavyweights (most of US incumbents) reported low increase in sales (3% on average) with dropping wireline revenues hardly offset by wireless revenues. ATT sales (without wireless business) plunged 12%. On the earnings side, the figures range from -36% (Bellsouth) to Sprint (+100%). The only sunbeam is from China Mobile with +30% in sales and +20% in earnings.