International telecom giant Alcatel-Lucent posted its eighth-straight quarterly loss after its earnings were wiped out by a $5.03 billion (USD) write-down of its assets.

The company posted losses of $5.01 billion for the fourth quarter, or a loss of $2.22 per share, compared with last year’s loss of $3.31 billion, or a loss of $1.46 per share.

On top of continuing write-downs, the company posted a 5.4 percent slump in revenue, to $6.36 billion from $6.72 billion last year.

“The asset impairment charge that severely impacted our bottom line was made necessary by the drastic deterioration of the global economic outlook during the fourth quarter as well our decision to shift to a more focused portfolio,” said CEO Ben Verwaayen in a statement.

For the full year 2008, the company posted a net loss of $6.71 billion, or loss of $2.97 per share, on revenues of $21.85 billion.