French telecommunication equipment manufacturer Alcatel estimated that its sales in the Middle East amount to no more than four percent of the company’s total sales. “Whatever business we did in Iraq was a minute amount of business. It is peanuts. It is not worth, it is not going to be a big deal in any instance,” asserted Alcatel Chairman and CEO Serge Tchuruk.
“It is difficult to tell regionally if the market share has increased or not increased [in the first quarter of 2003]. Our positioning has been quite different depending from one country to the other one,” he added. Alcatel’s profits in the Middle East region reached $400 million in 2001.
”The market share is probably up, although it is a mixed bag and certain countries, like Saudi Arabia, that we are not a player, others where we are like Abu Dhabi and Emirates and the like. So overall perhaps the trend is positive. Still in terms of the total fraction of our business, it is not a big number.”
Alcatel designs, develops and builds communications networks, enabling carriers, service providers and enterprises to deliver content, such as voice, data and multimedia, to consumer worldwide. With sales of 25 billion euro in 2001 and 99,000 employees, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
