A top executive at struggling high-tech company Bookham Technology said he was pleased with its latest financial results, despite mounting losses.

Bookham, based at Milton Park, near Abingdon, makes optical components for telephone and computer networks, a market that collapsed dramatically last year and is still in decline.

It axed 400 jobs last year, but its workforce recently rose to 900 after it bought Marconi's Optical Components business MOC, based in North- ampton.

Giorgio Anania, right, president and chief executive officer, said: "With the acquisition of MOC, we believe we now have most of the key components required for next-generation optical networks.

"The company now has three disrupting technologies, each capable of significantly reducing optical component costs through integration. Our broader product portfolio makes us more relevant to our customers as they seek to reduce the number of suppliers they use. "We have seen revenues beginning to grow again and product design-ins moving to the final stage."

Revenues grew in the first quarter of 2002 to £5.6m -- up 169 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2001 but down 52 per cent from the same period last year.

Marconi represented 55 per cent of sales, partly because it agreed to buy £30m worth of components as part of the takeover deal.

Pre-tax losses rose to £15.9m in the first quarter. In the last quarter of 2001, headline losses were £14.4m, excluding £29m of exceptional costs associated with the Marconi deal.

Cash burn for the quarter was £22.2m, mainly because of the Marconi takeover, but the company has £162.6m in the bank -- enough to last two or three years.

The company has continued to invest in research and development and has new products ready to roll off the production line as soon as demand picks up.

The company said it expected revenue to grow for the rest of the year, even in the absence of an upturn in market growth. The company continues to actively monitor its costs and expects to continue the trend of past quarters of reducing overhead costs and cash burn. Since it bought MOC, Bookham has become the third biggest optical component maker in the world.

Marconi now owns a 10 per cent share in Bookham, which at the time of the deal was valued at £197m.