Agilent has tough quarter, but sees turn-around

Agilent Technologies, the electronics equipment company spin-off from

Hewlett-Packard, announced it lost $253 million in the second quarter compared

with a profit of $102 million a year ago. Excluding special charges, Agilent had

a loss of $112 million compared with a profit of $18 million.

Agilent's sales fell to $1.46 billion from $2.4 billion a year ago but rose

from $1.43 billion in the previous quarter as Agilent saw demand for

semiconductor tools gaining new strength. Long-haul optical networking markets

remain weak and won't recover before 2003.






"The general feeling we have is that for the tech industry in general, it
is going to be a very slow gradual recovery," said Agilent CEO Ned Barnholt

"It is the telecom business that is probably the last to come back, but

even here we think there will be some recovery in the wireless business late

this year, early next year."

Second-quarter orders of $1.6 billion outpaced sales, rising 9 per cent from

the previous quarter and 14 per cent year-on-year. "Market conditions are

still pretty tough," but Agilent is coming out with a slew of new products.

We are on track."