Distribution has survived storm, claims GTDC

Study of US players' performance reveals that the market is picking up after slump

On the up: The worst is over for the distributors in the US, says GTDC

The worst may be over for the IT industry, according to distribution body the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC).

Speaking for the US industry specifically, the GTDC cited trends revealed by the NPD Group’s Distributor Track, which captures GTDC members’ actual US sales.

But trends in the US are tended to be mirrored in the UK and many of the GTDC members have a strong UK presence including Tech Data, Ingram Micro, Bell Micro, Arrow, Avnet and Westcon.

Tim Curran, chief executive of the GTDC, said: “The recession that has hurt industries across the world is still a challenging reality, but it appears that the downturn has levelled off in the US market for IT distributors. Our members are encouraged and look forward to driving growth again as market conditions further improve.”

NPD’s Distributor Track aggregates GTDC member sales by product and industry segment, as well as corresponding reseller channel and pricing trends.

Areas identified as strong growth areas include netbooks, wireless product and NAS solutions, which are proving popular with small and medium-sized businesses.

Curran added that a growing number of IT manufacturers and software publishers are relying on distribution to improve efficiency and market reach.

“We have seen a significant change in attitude toward distributors in recent years,” he said. “During the last industry downturn, certain vendors started to rethink their supply-chain strategies in favour of more direct sales.

“Over time, however, they realised that it makes far better sense to leverage distributors to cost-effectively sell their products through diverse reseller channels with specialised needs that are very difficult to directly address.”