Alcatel-Lucent, a telecommunications equipment maker, announced today that it posted its fifth straight quarterly loss. The company lost 181 million euros ($282 million) compared to a loss of 8 million euros a year earlier, when profits were boosted by the sale of businesses to Thales SA. Revenues were down 3.86 billion euros ($6.02 billion) compared with 3.88 billion euros from last year.

Alcatel-Lucent expects overall revenue for 2008 to decline by 2% to 5%. The company blames the loss on a weak dollar and lower spending by operators.

The first-quarter numbers sent shares of the company down 6.5% to sell at 4.2 euros ($6.5).

Alcatel-Lucent predicts that global communications equipment and related services will be flat in 2008. Chief Financial Officer Hubert de Pesquidous blames the worsening economic climate.

“While the long-term prospects for the industry are positive, the current macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, leading the company to continue to be prudent in its market assumptions,” Alcatel-Lucent said in a statement.

Alcatel-Lucent is in the middle of a company restructuring that may cut up to 12,500 jobs. The company cut 6,700 jobs in 2007. Alcatel-Lucent shares have lost about 10% of their value this year, after losing more than half their value in 2007.

Marchex, a company that delivers local online advertising and local content, announced today that it has extended its advertising strategy to the mobile market. Marchex has entered into agreements with mobile advertising providers AdMob, Ringleader Digital and 4INFO.

Marchex’s VoiceStar subsidiary will deliver call tracking services to all three companies. VoiceStar will enable the advertiser providers to validate the effectiveness and return on investment of their mobile advertising networks and provide their advertisers with analytics to help them optimize their mobile advertising campaigns.

Marchex’s call tracking enables mobile advertising providers to: (i) track the calls generated by advertisements on their network, (ii) determine exactly which advertisements delivered the calls, (iii) track and report key information including the duration, time of day and geographic location of callers, and (iv) record the calls. Marchex makes this information available to the mobile advertising provider through its reporting interface.

“Marchex is focused on partnerships with leading aggregators of local advertisers across all channels: online, offline, and mobile,” said John Keister, Marchex President and COO. “We believe that the mobile advertising opportunity is significant and is poised to realize tremendous growth over the next five years. Our call tracking and pay-per-phone-call capabilities provide a significant advantage for Marchex in the mobile search advertising market.”

“We are excited to bring new tools and technologies that will provide our advertising customers with results-focused advertising solutions,” said Omar Hamoui, Founder and CEO AdMob. “By linking the browsing experience of the mobile web with the communications capabilities of mobile phones, AdMob continues to deliver a powerful new tool for advertisers. Marchex’s call-based advertising services and suite of analytic tools enable us to better monetize our inventory and enable our advertisers to maximize the return on investment for their mobile advertising campaigns.”

VoiceStar
Marchex

The Movie Speed Racer, which is based on a cartoon series from the 1970’s, hits theaters on May 9. In tandem with the movie’s release, Glu Mobile launched a game based on the movie today. Speed Racer is the first title Glu has developed and published through its strategic partnership with Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.

“The team at Glu has done a remarkable job of delivering all the fast action of SPEED RACER onto the mobile phone,” said Anthony Campagna, director of wireless sales development, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. “This game provides hours of entertainment and will make a great companion piece for anyone passionate about SPEED RACER.”

The goal of the game is to become the ultimate Grand Prix champion by using all the abilities of your car Mach 6 and through “Car-Fu.” Through Car-Fu you become one with your car Mach 6 and drive with skills beyond the average racer. The game lets you drift, slide, jump and defensively drive while navigating extreme tracks against tuff competitors and obstacles.

Speed Racer has advanced graphics and 3D screens. The graphics are meant to fully immerse the player into the gaming experience.

“We’re really proud of the job our studio has done to develop a white-knuckle racing game on par with the level of quality that the Wachowski brothers expect,” said Jill Braff, senior vice president, global publishing, Glu. “We’re excited to be able to put this experience in the hands of consumers in anticipation of the film’s debut.”

The Wachowski brothers wrote, directed and produced the movie.

Glu

The digital movie provider CinemaNow announced today that customers can use their cell phones to view movie trailers and order full-length titles to watch on their home television or computer through its mobile website. The new service allows customers to buy or rent a movie while they are out and about with friends or family.

“It definitely makes discovery a little more social when you can talk about the movie and do the purchase while you’re there,” said David Cook, CinemaNow’s chief operating officer.

CinemaNow will download movies to a user’s electronic device like a personal computer. Internet downloads of movies can take over an hour, so by ordering while on the go, hopefully the title will be ready to view when the customer gets home. Online movie purchases cost around $14.99 and rentals cost about $1.99.

Full movies can’t be downloaded to handsets yet. But the company hopes to be able to download full length movies to cell phones by next year.

If you have a Web-capable phone and live in the United States, go to http://mobile.cinemanow.com and checkout the service.

Recycling mobile phones has been in the news lately. You may not realize it, but there are a host of precious metals in that little handset that keeps you connected on-the-go. Gold and silver are just two elements that manufactures put into that magic box you talk into.

Recovering these metals is called “urban mining”, and it’s becoming more profitable as the prices of metals reach near-record prices. Recovered materials are reused in new electronic parts and gold and silver is melted down to be sold as ingots for jewelers and precious metals investors. Gold is often used in cell phone circuit boards because gold conducts electricity better than copper. But even copper is reaching record prices as developing countries expand their electronic infrastructures.

Recycling mobile phones produces more gold ton for ton over the average goldmine. A ton of gold ore contains on average 5 grams (0.18 ounce) of gold, while a ton of used mobile phones contain 150 grams (5.3 ounces) of gold. Urban miners don’t get to use explosives but they can make a hefty profit with gold selling for around $890 an ounce.

Copper, tin, silver and iridium are also recycled from mobile phones. A ton of cell phones contain 100 kg (220 lb) of copper and 3 kg (6.6 lb) of silver. Urban miners are able to dig-up these elements without having to worry about claim-jumpers, and the hazards of eating pork and beans with every meal.

Nokia, the world’s biggest cell phone manufacturer, revealed three new handset models today. The new models were designed to compete in the very active market of mid-priced phones. This market is highly competitive.

Nokia will start shipping the new models in the third-quarter of this year. The new mid-priced phones include the Nokia 6600 Fold, the Nokia 6600 Slide and the Nokia 3600 Slide. These models will sell for between 175 euros ($273) and 275 euros, excluding taxes and subsidies.

Nokia controls around 39% of the world’s mobile phone market. The company has recently made great sales progress in emerging markets with sales of its low-priced phones.

Motorola, the company that manufactured the first commercially available cell phone, saw its overall sales drop 21% in this year’s first-quarter. Sales dropped to $7.45 billion from last year’s first-quarter sales number of $9.43 billion. Motorola’s cellphone division dropped 39% compared to the sales numbers from first-quarter 2007.

The mobile phone division lost $418 million during the quarter, nearly 80% more than the $233 million it lost during the same period last year. Motorola only sold 27 million handsets in the first-quarter, as it saw its share of the global market fall below 10%, down from the 22% of market share it had in 2006.

Motorola’s enterprise mobility solutions division did see growth. This branch of the company sells computing and communications equipment to businesses. That unit’s operating profits grew by 9%.

Samsung Electronics announced today that its net profit was up 37% in the first-quarter of this year. Much of the increase came from sales of cell phones in emerging markets. Samsung earned 2.19 trillion won ($2.2 billion) in the three months that ended on March 31. Sales rose 19% to 17.11 trillion won ($17.19 billion).

Samsung said that mobile sales “achieved similar volume” to last year’s fourth-quarter record sales of 46.3 million handsets. Handset sales continued to grow despite the fact that the global market for cell phones has contracted by about 13%. Samsung sales in China and India are driving the company’s sales increase.

“Our handset business is growing very strong,” Chu Woo-sik, executive vice president for investor relations, told analysts on a conference call.

Samsung leads the world in the manufacture of computer memory chips and flat screen televisions and is the second-largest manufacturer of mobile phones.

NextWave Wireless is planning to sell its holdings of U.S. airwaves. It is estimated that the licenses held by NextWave are worth billions of dollars. The money raised from the sales will be used by NextWave to pay off debt and invest in the company’s products. NextWave makes telecommunications equipment. Among other things, it makes chips for WiMax, a next-generation wireless standard being deployed by Sprint-Nextel.

NextWave announced late yesterday that it hired Deutsche Bank and UBS to help the company sell its spectrum holdings, which cover 85% of the U.S. population. Coverage includes major markets like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. It is speculated that a company may try to buy most of the holdings to create a new national mobile provider in the United States.

It isn’t clear what the value of Next Wave’s holdings is worth. If the sale goes as well as the recent FCC auction of the 700 megahertz spectrum, the licenses could be worth $6 billion. But NextWave isn’t likely to get that much for its holdings. The radio characteristics of its spectrum make it more expensive to put to use.

According to NextWave’s chief financial officer George Alex, the company paid about $500 million for the airwaves. NextWave shares rose $1.25, or 26%, to $6 in midday trading today.

“The 700 megahertz auction was exceptional in the prices that they achieved,” Alex said. “We’ve had a lot of inbound inquiry … A lot of people were unfulfilled in their needs by 700. They’d amassed the business plans and the money they needed to participate in that auction, so now they’re looking for other alternatives.”

Buzzd, a location-based city guide and social network for mobile phones, announced that it has completed Series A funding, led by Greycroft Partners and Monitor Ventures. The money will be used for product development and distribution. Monitor’s Fern Mandelbaum will join Buzzd’s Board of Directors, along with company Co-Founders Nihal Mehta and Deepen Shah.

“Monitor and Greycroft have successfully guided digital media start-ups from seed to success. We are excited to have partners who will roll up their sleeves and really work with entrepreneurs,” said Buzzd CEO Nihal Mehta.

”Buzzd provides a necessary utility for users, helping them locate venues, interact with friends, and read reviews on the mobile device,” said Alan Patricof, Managing Director of Greycroft Partners.

Buzzd lets you search for local events and other hotspots in your city. Buzzd will tell you which bands are playing at local bars, the location of a four-star eatery and other such information. The interface lets the user share information with others on Buzzd, so people can setup their own social networks.

Hoenitos Premium Tequila is joining the Buzzd community as an advertiser. Through this partnership, Buzzd members can buy their friends Hornitos drinks and redeem the codes delivered via SMS at hundreds of bars in association with BuyYourFriendADrink.com. What could be better than getting your friends drunk with your mobile phone?

For more information on Buzzd visit http://www.buzzd.com. Users can register for the service immediately by texting ‘join’ to 96321, or visiting http://buzzd.com/m from their web or mobile browser.