Telecom Giant Expects Continued Growth: Alcatel-Lucent CEO

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.

Geographically, the company’s business comes a third each from the US, Europe and the rest of the world. Of those areas, he said, business is good in the US and Asia and is “flatish” in Europe.

“Overall in the [European] economy, it is truly important that we keep the momentum of Europe as a concept,” he added. “And it’s important also that we find some positive features in getting together as countries in an economy that really needs to get together.

If you look to individual [European] countries, it’s simply not the size of an economy that will do well [alone].”