Cutting edge

Mumbai, May 26: US-based Lucent Technologies is planning to axe 10 per cent of its workforce worldwide.

The job cuts follow the recent announcement of a global merger between the US telecom equipment giant and Alcatel of France, though the company says they are not related to the merger process.

?Speculation on merger reductions is only speculation at this point. It was indeed earlier announced that an approximate 10 per cent staff reduction would be a result of the new combined entity, if approved. However, no such decisions by specific geography has been made to date,? Lucent India said in reply to a questionnaire.

?Lucent is conducting operations in India on a business as usual stance and any suggestion that this decision is merger related is completely erroneous. For one thing, the merger proposal does not yet have required approvals (expected within the next 12 months). And in the meantime, before these approvals, it is business as usual and business decisions undertaken are for Lucent India?s best interests,? the company said.

In April, Alcatel and Lucent Technologies Inc announced they would merge in a $13.4-billion stock swap. Lucent CEO Patricia Russo will be the chief executive of the merged entity based in Paris. Alcatel CEO Sergei Tchuruk will be the chairman of the new telecom giant.

The workforce reductions will impact Lucent?s India operations as well and its employees were informed regarding the move about a month ago.

Lucent India?s boss C.S. Rao recently put in his papers and is being replaced by Vivek Mohan. The company has also shifted its Mumbai office from the Bandra Kurla Complex to Andheri East as part of its cost-cutting measures.

After the merger, the combined workforce of the two companies globally is expected to be around 88,000.

Rao had taken charge as Lucent India?s president and CEO in 2004. He had succeeded Vincent Mazzola. Before being appointed as the head of Lucent?s India operations, Rao was with Tellabs India where he was the regional director for SAARC countries.

Lucent has a 40 per cent market share of the global CDMA equipment business. Alcatel is the number one player in wireline space and also has a strong presence in the GSM equipment market.

Lucent has a strong customer base in India, including Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices and BSNL.

Lucent currently focuses on CDMA technology-based telecom equipment after exiting the GSM space some time ago. The company has operations spread across nine cities in India with more than 1,200 employees.

India has also emerged as a hub for the company?s research and development activities with the opening up of the Bell Lab centre in Bangalore last year. The company already has software development centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

In the transmission business, Alcatel has a 29 per cent market share in India for microwave links for various customers.

The Tatas are one of Alcatel?s big customers in India. Alcatel has provided the transmission infrastructure in 12 circles for Tata Teleservices and VSNL.

Lucent and Alcatel had held an abortive merger talks five years ago.

According to the statement released by the company after the merger, the new group?s revenues would be around 21 billion euros ($25.4 billion).