Lucent sees no telecom recovery for 6 months

FRANKFURT: Lucent Technologies Inc. does not expect a recovery in the

telecommunications equipment sector within the next six months, its chief

executive said in a newspaper interview on Saturday.

"We see light at the end of the tunnel, but we don't yet know how long

the tunnel is," Patricia Russo told German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung. "The downturn is deeper and is lasting longer than anyone

forecast six months or a year ago."

She added that no merger was currently on the cards for the world's biggest

telecom equipment maker. "We are totally focused on our plans to

restructure Lucent to overcome the market weakness and to come through the

crisis as an independent company."

Since January 2001, Lucent has slashed jobs, cut money-losing products and

sold non-core businesses in an effort to return to profitability amid

drastically curtailed spending by its telecom customers. Russo said Lucent

expected to return to profit "sometime in 2003."