Computacenter has provided an overall positive trading update for the first quarter to 31 March 2018. “The performance has been better than expected”, said the firm, “particularly for our supply chain revenues”.
The company said 2018 is “likely to be a year of further progress in profitability”. In unaudited results, group revenue for the first quarter increased by 23% and by 21% in constant currency. Group services revenue increased by 2% and remained flat in constant currency. Group supply chain revenue increased by 33% and by 31% in constant currency.
Overall UK revenue increased by 31%, but services revenue declined by 7%. Supply chain revenue increased by 52%. Total German revenue increased by 19%, with services revenue increasing by 7%. German supply chain sales were up 25%. In France, overall sales were “flat” for the first quarter, with an increase of 5% in services and a decrease of 1% in supply chain revenue.
In the quarter, Computacenter completed a share tender offer that returned around £100m to shareholders.
“Overall, we do not see any obvious reason why the current positive market conditions for Computacenter should not continue in the near term,” said the company.
For the company's previously posted full year results for 2017, Computacenter said it had seen trading performance improvements across its three main markets of the UK, France and Germany over the 12 months, with Germany seeing the greatest rise.
