Distributor Arrow Electronics admits it is still awaiting the return of large enterprise rollouts, despite returning to year-on-year growth in the final quarter of 2009.

While global sales rose three per cent on last year to $4.2bn (£2.6bn) – topping expectations - revenues from Europe fell four per cent on an annual comparison, or 13 per cent in local currencies.

Arrow splits its business into two divisions: components, and enterprise computing solutions (ECS) such as servers, storage and software.

While the former saw sales grow six per cent to $2.59bn, the latter's revenues fell two per cent to $1.61bn on an annual comparison.

In a conference call – a transcript of which can be found here - Andy Bryant, global president of ECS, said he was “cautiously optimistic” for that part of the business, but that large projects were still scarce.

“I think the big swing in the number for our business in the enterprise space is we are still looking for the large enterprise rollout projects to return,” he said.

Arrow posted a net profit of $63.1m for the quarter, compared with a net loss of $871.9m a year earlier. Chief executive Michael Long said the distributor had ended 2009 on a “positive note”, but struck a cautious tone in his assessment of the market.

“The current recession has been more broad-based and deeper than expected, so the industry still has some recovering to do before revenues return to the levels seen prior to the downturn,” he said.