Premier Farnell Powers Ahead In First Quarter

Premier Farnell  has franked the distribution sector's recovery reporting substantial improvements in revenue and profit in its first quarter.

Profit before tax climbed 71 per cent to £22m on revenues up 20 per cent to £245m. There were fine performances from all the geographic regions lead by a sterling performance in the Americas where sales grew 17 per cent and underlying profit shot up 121.4 per cent on the back of significant year on year margin improvement. European sales were up 26.2 per cent and Asia/Pacific powered forward 50.9 per cent.

eCommerce continues to play a stronger hand, accounting for 44 per cent of first quarter sales. European engineers are the most enthusiastic users of the channel making up 60 per cent of sales as the company exited the first quarter. Asia/Pacific eCommerce accounted for 53.8 per cent of sales and 28.7 per cent of sales came via eCommerce in the Americas.

Targets for the next three years are developing international business to account for 30 per cent of total sales, increasing eCommerce sales to 70 per cent of all MDD sales and a return on sales of 12 to 15 per cent.

Harriet Green (pictured), Group Chief Executive, commented: “The successful execution of our strategy together with increased activity levels within the global electronics supply chain has seen the positive sales trends from February continue throughout the quarter, with Group sales growing 20% year on year. This sales performance, combined with the operational leverage inherent in our business, has resulted in year on year underlying operating profit growth of 45%.

 

“The very positive momentum in sales growth that we have seen in the first quarter has accelerated in all of our distribution businesses in May, with Group sales growing 30% year on year. The broader economic background is still somewhat variable and our business model inherently provides us with limited visibility. However, the strength of our strategy and the continuing transformation of our organisation are reflected in our updated success metrics. In the current year we remain confident that strategically and operationally our focus on execution will drive continuing year on year sales growth.”