US networking manufacturer 3Com is to retrench about 900 employees - over a quarter of its workforce - after posting a $139 million loss in its second quarter.
The latest quarterly results were released yesterday. The quarterly loss equates to 37 US cents per share, on $181 million in sales. That compares with a first-quarter loss of 29 cents a share on sales of $162 million, and a year-ago loss of 19 cents a share on $272 million in sales.
3Com says the retrenchments are part of previously announced cutbacks and are a result of the ongoing outsourcing of manufacturing.
According to the group revenues for the quarter were around $182 million, ahead of the First Call estimate of $167 million, and an increase of 12% sequentially. Channel inventories were approximately four and a half weeks at quarter end, consistent with the first quarter.
Revenue in the America`s declined by 11%, while that received from the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (including South Africa) rose by 38% and that from the Asia Pacific region increased by 12%.
Revenues from the recently announced router products and the modular Layer 3 Switch 7700 sourced from the Huawei-3Com Joint Venture were approximately $5 million. 3Com is just a month into that joint venture
"During the quarter we also had a significant increase in sales of 10/100 fixed-configuration switches, as well as good sequential growth in fixed-configuration Gigabit switches and our wireless products," says Mark Slavin, 3Com`s CFO.
Share
