First Nokia now Alcatel-Lucent have reported supply chain issues.

May 9, 2014

1 Min Read
Components Shortages Hit Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia

A bottleneck in the mobile broadband infrastructure components supply chain has hit two of the industry major systems vendors in the opening months of this year.

As part of its first-quarter earnings report, Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK)'s Networks division (formerly NSN) announced last week that a shortage of "certain components" hurt sales during the first three months of this year. The company expects the problem to persist during the second quarter. (See Nokia Ushers In New Era, Retires NSN Name.)

Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri said during the company's earnings conference call that it is "working aggressively with suppliers to address the issue."

Now Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) has identified the same problem. While talking about his company's involvement in 4G rollouts in China, CEO Michel Combes said some component supply constraints impacted the vendor's wireless access business during the first quarter. (See IP, Optical Prop Up Alcatel-Lucent's Q1.)

Alcatel-Lucent isn't providing any further details about the nature of the shortage or its financial impact, but a spokesman told Light Reading that the vendor expects the situation to be resolved soon, and that normal supply processes will return during the second and third quarters.

Nokia declined to comment any further on the issue.

This isn't the first time such shortages have impacted radio access network equipment vendors. In 2010, a component shortage hit NSN, AlcaLu, and Ericsson for a couple of quarters. (See Parts Problems Hurt Ericsson's Q2, AlcaLu in Recovery Mode, and NSN's 2010 Confidence Slips.)

— Ray Le Maistre, Circle me on Google+ Follow me on TwitterVisit my LinkedIn profile, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

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