Computacenter looking at a strong 2018

Just a couple of days after Softcat issued an upbeat trading statement commenting on favourable market conditions another established channel name, Computacenter, has followed suit.

The trading update issued this morning, covering the second quarter, from Computacenter stated that 2018 was treating it well so far and there were no signs of that changing.

"Following a strong start to the year, as indicated in our Q1 2018 Trading Update published on 27 April 2018, the Group has seen continued momentum in the second quarter within the Supply Chain business across all geographies, but particularly in Germany," the firm stated.

Profitability has also improved with the first six months and earnings per share have improved following the buyback that was completed in February.

Echoing Softcat, which indicated that its full year results would be ahead of expectations, Computacenter informed investors that the second half was looking fairly solid.

"Whilst there is still a significant amount to do in the second half of the year, Computacenter's Board believes that the Group's trading result for the 2018 financial year will now be comfortably in excess of its previous expectations set out in the Q1 Trading Update," the firm stated.

That Q1 update revealed that Group revenues in the first three months increased by 23% with services turnover improving by 2% and supply chain hitting 33%.

Turning to the UK the revenues increased by 31%. Supply chain was again strong, with a 52% improvement, but services revenue decline by 7%. Germany was up by 19% but France was flat in Q1.

Although it would be unwise to use two firms as a barometer of the state of the channel the updates from Computacenter and Softcat have revealed that market conditions are good at the moment and show no sign of slowing down as the second half of the year progresses.