Bechtle AG reports that its high growth rate since the beginning of the year continued in the second quarter. From April to June 2018, revenue surged 17.4% to €965.0m. Operating income (EBIT) grew even more, up 20.3% to €43.9m. The EBT margin increased from 4.4% to 4.5%. As of 30 June 2018, Bechtle had a total of 8,790 employees, 881 or 11.1% more than in the prior year.
"Profitable growth of almost 20% in two consecutive quarters is an outstanding achievement. It is the result of our compelling solution competence and the high motivation of our team. Moreover, the more or less even distribution of the growth over the two business segments shows the broad basis of our customers' willingness to invest, which remains high," explains Dr. Thomas Olemotz, Chairman of the Executive Board of Bechtle AG.
The IT system house & managed services segment increased its revenue 18.1% to €676.8m. Posting an increase of 31.4%, the system houses in Austria and Switzerland recorded especially high growth. However, growth was at a very high level in Germany as well, reaching 16.3%, it says. Impulses came from the application solutions and managed services segments as well in the classic project business. Operating income climbed 17.0% to €28.8m in the second quarter of 2018. The EBIT margin was 4.2%, only slightly below the prior-year level.
In the IT e-commerce segment, revenue grew 15.6% to €288.2m second quarter of 2018. Here too, the growth rate was higher abroad, where it reached 23.3%. Segment EBIT underwent a significantly higher increase of 27.0%, resulting in a substantial margin increase from 4.8% to 5.3%. One of the factors that contributed to this positive development was the expansion of the international customer relationships by the ARP brand, which is represented in six countries.
In 2018, Bechtle has already performed two rather small, but strategically important acquisitions in Switzerland. Additionally, as already reported in July, the company plans to acquire the French Inmac Wstore.
With its strong revenue and earnings performance in the first half of 2018, Bechtle has exceeded its own expectations for 2018 as a whole and raised its forecasts. "Apart from the highly positive organic development, the purchase of Inmac Wstore will also help us to achieve further growth through acquisitions. Against this backdrop - and assuming that the economic framework conditions remain positive - we are stepping up our forecast for the year and now expect a two-digit growth rate for our revenue and earnings - a growth rate very significantly higher than that of the prior year," says Dr. Thomas Olemotz. As far as the margin is concerned, the Executive Board confirms its original forecast, which predicts a slight increase.
