Researcher using major distributors' returns shows impact of confidence - revived in France, hit in UK
After a period of sustained growth in double digits for the last three quarters, the UK IT industry channel seems to have succumbed to Brexit fears and went into decline, says researcher CONTEXT using numbers from its own panels and major distributors including the big GTDC members. Geographic outliers, Portugal and Norway were again ticking up strongly with a second quarter of double digit growth. Germany and France were in single digits, but on the up.
Unadjusted total European panel revenues were up +1.0% in q2 2017, but it was a difficult overall comparison because Easter was in Q2 this year. Total Eurozone member unadjusted Q217 revenues were up +1.9% compared to Q2 2016; non-euro members excluding the UK were up +0.1% as UK member revenues fell -1.1%, it says.
In industry sectors, Audio/Visual is a clear winner with sales up again at 17.5% after a 15% jump last quarter. Telecoms is also good, particularly in the UK and France, but its growth rate has halved from a spectacular overall 27% in the last quarter, but is still an impressive 13%. Software and licensing continues to lose out in reaction to cloud moves, and was down 13% on the last quarter, including a 19% fall in Germany.
Among brands, IBM continues to lose following its withdrawal from some technologies, and the big winner is Huawei, whose rate of growth has slowed from triple digits to a respectable 32%.
CONTEXT predicts a period of growth, perhaps slowing, for the rest of the year.