Brightpoint buy leads Ingram Q2 sales boost

Distie's global revenue up 17 per cent annually, driven mainly by last year's mobility buy

Ingram Micro's 2012 buyout of mobility giant Brightpoint has significantly boosted its second-quarter figures, as sales grew annually by 17 per cent.

Some 15 percentage points of the figure come from the Brightpoint buy, meaning the firm's organic year-on-year growth was almost flat at just two per cent.

For the three months to 29 June, net income at the distributor rose 14 per cent annually to $4bn, on sales which jumped 17 per cent to $10.3bn (£6.7bn) over the same period.

The distributor‘s chief executive Alain Monie said the firm had stuck to its plan of investing in high-margin products to achieve the growth.

"We are managing our growth well and we believe continued execution on our strategic initiatives to increase the ratio of our higher-margin, and better-returns businesses will result in above-market growth rates, while also improving profitability and generating better shareholder returns," he said.

"I am pleased with our performance in the second quarter, as we executed well against our key objectives for the year, resulting in significant improvements across several important financial metrics."

Europe was the only region in which the firm did not grow its top line, with sales down one per cent annually to $2.43bn. The North America and Asia-Pacific regions were both up five per cent year on year, with revenue reaching $4bn and $2.1bn respectively.

The firm pinpointed Australia as a stand-out region for the company as it cut its losses to less than $3m, compared to $9m in 2012's second quarter and $5m just last quarter.

Earlier this week, analyst Context suggested high stock-level trouble could be mounting in Europe, but Ingram's chief financial officer Bill Humes insisted his firm's inventory levels were stable.

"Overall, I think we see channel inventories... at pretty stable amounts," he said, speaking on a conference call transcribed by Seeking Alpha.

"Our DIO [days inventory outstanding] was right in line with what it has been like... over the past six quarters [at] around 35 days. So I think overall, we manage it very closely. I think we are set up for the right levels of growth in the next couple of quarters as well."