Morse investigates first-quarter loss

IT services company blames poor summer sales

IT services company Morse has blamed poor summer sales in its infrastructure business for a first-quarter shortfall.

For the quarter ended 30 September, the reseller's turnover was down to £111m, compared with £151m in the same period last year. Sales from its infrastructure business totalled £88m, down from £133m last year.

The firm said it did not have any evidence that the end of summer upturn will occur.

In May, Morse announced its plan to make savings in the UK of £5m, involving about 80 redundancies. The firm said that figure is not set to increase. Marketing manager Mark Byatt said: "We have no plans for wholesale redundancies."

The company is balancing its infrastructure business alongside the development of its services arm. In April it decided to offer architecture, planning, deployment and management, as well as project management.

The services arm reported sales of £23m, an increase of £5m on last year. Morse claimed that the UK performance of this unit was going according to plan.