NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Lucent Technologies' business was much worse than expected in the fiscal fourth quarter, making the prospect of yet another round of job cuts at the struggling telecom-equipment maker far more likely.

Early Friday, the Murray Hill, N.J.-based company said it expects to log a loss, excluding one-time charges, of 45 cents per share for the period. That's a much wider deficit than Wall Street had expected. By First Call's count, analysts generally had forecast a loss closer to 16 cents per share.

Lucent said it expects revenue in the fourth quarter to decline between 20 and 25 percent from the $2.95 billion it recorded in the third quarter. Most company watchers had expected Lucent's fourth-quarter revenue to be flat with the third, according to First Call's surveys.

The company blamed the shortfall on the declining revenue and charges associated with a significant customer that defaulted on financing terms earlier this month. Lucent would not disclose the amount of the charge, the size of the defaulted loan or the customer involved.

Shares of Lucent (LU: down $0.21 to $1.44, Research, Estimates) sank on the news, trading nearly 13 percent lower on the New York Stock Exchange early Friday afternoon.

"It's kind of hard to be shocked by the magnitude of these declines when they're declining every single quarter," said Shawn Campbell, an analyst with Northern Trust Corp.'s asset management arm, which owns a small number of Lucent shares.

"It's certainly a little bit worse than what some of their competitors are seeing," Campbell added. "It's a pretty awful sector here."

Lucent said it is taking steps to ensure it remains on track to restore profitability by the end of fiscal 2003. The fourth quarter will mark the tenth in a row during which the company has lost money.

Faced with a protracted slump in new-equipment orders by service providers in a weak and uncertain economic environment, Lucent has been cutting jobs and streamlining its operations.

The company previously said it would cut its work force to about 45,000 by the end of this year. However, executives have indicated recently that further job cuts may happen as they continue to pare costs.

"As far as a range, we will not speculate right now," Lucent spokesman Frank Briamonte said.

Some industry analysts are expecting that Lucent will end up with between 30,000 and 35,000 employees after the next round of job cuts. In 2001, Lucent employed 106,000.

Lucent executives are expected to provide more details during the company's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings conference call on Oct. 23.

Previously, Lucent executives have said they are aiming to reduce the company's quarterly break-even revenue threshold to between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. The company expects to continue to operate at a deficit until the end of fiscal 2003.