Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Reports Positive Revenue Growth for Q2
On August 24, 2021, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) briefed its Q2 performance for FY21. Q2 saw positive revenue growth of 11.4% YoY, delivering 20% against the previous year.
Of note for ALE’s Q2 is the strong demand for on-premises communications systems by SMBs. This demand has seen a 63% growth YoY, as SMBs invest in their communications systems to better adapt to COVID-19 restrictions for the long-term. This activity has been particularly driven in Belgium, Italy, USA, and France, fueled by ALE’s partnerships with NXO, Orange, and Alliance.
ALE’s cloud communications services also continued to dominate its global sales, with Q2 reporting growth of 63% worldwide YoY. At the heart of this increase are MLEs building their UCaaS platforms through ALE’s Rainbow, with an increase of 60,000 registered Rainbow users since Q1.
Regionally, ALE saw a decrease in sales of 5% for EMEA, though France grew by 11% YoY. ALE is now framing France as a distinct sales region because of its consistent success in the French markets. APAC saw an increase of 2%, while the Americas experienced contrasting results. North America decreased by 2% YoY, while Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Mexico led to a global increase of more than 90% YoY in the MLV segment.
Our Take
ALE’s Q2 is demonstrative of its recovery from the pandemic’s impact. While Q1 saw overall revenues remaining down, Q2 has delivered positive revenue growth and a healthy outlook for H2 2021. Indeed, ALE’s turnaround for attracting SMB sales has been impressive: whereas in Q1 SMBs were down 9%, the sudden expansion in sales for on-premises solutions by SMBs is indicative of a global economy getting back on its feet and starting to look at the long-term.
As expected, ALE continues to rapidly grow its cloud communications services. Notably, ALE is making headway with MLEs in this space. Q1 saw ALE struggle to penetrate for IP products in MLEs; Q2 appears to show a positive shift toward this penetration. All this helps explain why ALE is seeing good Q2 results.
ALE’s Rainbow solution is also well positioned in SoftwareReviews’ UCaaS Data Quadrant. Rainbow maintains its position as a market leader, scoring highly for product strategy, ease of data integration, and its centralized management portal.
Source: SoftwareReviews, UCaaS Data Quadrant. Accessed August 27, 2021.