UK sets the pace in fine Q3 for Ingram

Broadliner enjoys healthy top- and bottom-line boost as it targets more value-add business

Best foot forward: Ingram's UK sales growth in Q3 outpaced that of the wider EMEA region

Strong growth in UK enterprise sales was one of the success stories for distribution giant Ingram Micro as it enjoyed an impressive third fiscal quarter.

For the three months to 2 October, Ingram's global revenue shot up 14 per cent annually to $8.45bn (£5.32bn), while net profit increased more than 50 per cent to $65m. In the EMEA region, sales grew 15 per cent year on year to $2.48bn, although the weakness of European currencies affected growth to the tune of 11 percentage points. EMEA operating income was up 38 per cent to $18.8bn.

A transcript of Ingram's Q3 earnings conference call, published by Seeking Alpha, reveals the UK was one of the distributor's strongest performers. Sales in this country grew above the EMEA-wide rate of 15 per cent. Ingram's chief executive Greg Spierkel claimed Ingram's UK operation had posted strong sales of enterprise technologies and services.

"EMEA has emerged from the recession with one of the strongest years in its history and now is venturing into exciting new adjacencies to cultivate incremental growth and profitability. I feel good about the region and its future," he added.

The distribution big cheese also revealed that he envisages higher-margin, value-add business to come to represent a bigger slice of Ingram's business.

"There are still plenty of opportunities to improve our performance," he said. "Demand for technology remains solid and we continue to create more efficient and powerful infrastructure to successfully support our growth.

"Our higher-margin specialty businesses, fee-for-service logistics, data capture/point-of-sale, value-added enterprise solutions and services are expanding globally and are expected to become a greater portion of our business mix in the years ahead."