­Alcatel-Lucent has announced that its third-quarter revenues fell by 2.8 percent to EUR3.6 billion (US$4.7 billion). At constant currency exchange rates and perimeter, revenues would have decreased by 9.7% year-over-year.

Revenues for the wireless division were EUR837 million, a decrease of 18.9% from the year-ago quarter. The wireless business faced another difficult year-over-year comparison in the third quarter, which, combined with overall cautious spending from service providers, led to declines across most technologies, especially in legacy equipment.

The company also dropped back into a loss of EUR146 million (US$189 million) compared to a profit of EUR194 million a year ago.

Gross margin came in at 27.9% of revenue for the quarter, compared to 35.3% in the year ago quarter and 31.7% in the second quarter 2012. The year-over-year decline in gross margin results mainly from overall lower volumes, unfavorable product and business mix and unusual high level of reserves.

Ben Verwaayen, CEO Alcatel-Lucent, commented: "We are making good progress with The Performance Program. Costs savings are in excess of EUR450 million since the beginning of the year and five managed services contracts will be addressed by the end of this year. We are also progressing according to our plan to reduce headcount and are targeting 5,500 positions. We will complete these cost reductions by the end of 2013."