The CEO of telecom giant Alcatel-Lucent, Ben Verwaayen, told CNBC Monday the company expects profits to grow between 1 percent and 5 percent this year and continued growth in 2011.
“We are in a good position,” said Verwaayen. The company, headquartered in Paris, has 77,000 employees in 130 countries. “We are growing our business.”
Although analysts have predicted that the company will need a cash infusion of between 800 million and 1.5 billion euros in 2011, Verwaayen said that they are mistaken and that Alcatel-Lucent is "fine" as is.
Verwaayen said growth has come in two ways—by people upgrading their networks and the explosion of all things digital, in which everyone going online needs an IP, or Internet protocol.