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| Top European Corporate Resellers Show Growth in IT Sales In spite of recurring predictions of their imminent decline as a major channel, Europe's leading Corporate Resellers are proving a resilient breed and are maintaining growth rates close to the market average. The top 300 Corporate Resellers (Resellers generating more than 50% of their revenues from sales to organisations with more than 500 employees) achieved combined sales of $25.34 billion last year. But behind the numbers is an industry in turmoil as companies make acquisitions and change business models in an effort to maintain margins. These are amongst the findings of "Corporate Resellers in Europe –The Top 300", the latest database report from IT Europa. The report, which provides detailed business profiles of each of the top 300 European Corporate Resellers, reveals that income from services now represents more than 30% of total revenues and for some companies climbs as high as 45%. In spite of a slight drop in sales year on year, the European league-table is headed by Computacenter followed by Specialist Computer Holdings. Other winners include Nordic giant Ementor ASA, with a massive 183% rise in revenues fuelled by the acquisition of Atea, and Telindus Group SA which grew 13.6 % largely on the back of increased services revenues. In terms of geography, the greatest growth is being seen in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe within which year-on-year growth averaged 20.5%. By contrast the rest of Europe grew by 13%. "This is an extremely competitive market in which margins are very tight", explains Christine Bardwell, IT Europa Research Manager. "As a consequence we are seeing most Corporate Resellers seeking to grow consultancy and services revenues, particularly in areas such as project management in an effort to boost profits." IT Europa's Managing Director, Alan Norman, adds: "The difficulty that many companies are having in maintaining revenues demonstrates that this is a very tough market, and a lot of resellers are having to review their business models. However, if you're a vendor looking to get your product onto the desktop or into the data centre, Corporate Resellers still provide the fastest route to volume sales." write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Computing News :: home page |