UK the golden child as Computacenter breaks £3bn

France disappoints, Germany stabilises and UK surges as London-listed firm posts fourth consecutive year of revenue growth

Computacenter has smashed the £3bn turnover barrier for the first time as its star-performing UK business was buoyed by strong Windows 7 demand.

Despite encountering continuing issues at its French operation, Computacenter saw overall adjusted pre-tax profits rise by three per cent to £81.7m for the 12 months to 31 December, as revenue rose 2.5 per cent to £3.07bn.

This represents the fourth straight year of revenue growth for the London-listed corporate reseller and IT services outfit.

The UK led the way, with revenue rising 7.6 per cent to £1.29bn on the back of an 8.4 per cent hike in "supply chain" (product) sales, partly thanks to continued demand for Windows 7 rollouts.

Chief executive Mike Norris (pictured below) predicted that UK customers would continue to roll out Windows 7 and Office 2010 as they look to modernise their workplace environments.

But he added: "Our approach to professional services business development will not be solely reliant upon these upgrades, and in terms of a longer-term outlook, we believe that demand will continue and be based around Windows Server, mobility, datacentre and networking upgrades."

Despite grappling with the after-effects of several "onerous" mega-contracts it took on in Germany in 2011, Computacenter's German business enjoyed a year of "financial and operational stability" as revenue rose 6.5 per cent to €1.498bn (£1.248bn).

However, France remains the problem child of the group as Gallic sales shrivelled 7.1 per cent and adjusted operating losses hit €8.6m as a lengthy local rollout of its group-wide ERP system led to logistics issues.

Norris added: "The Board expects Computacenter to make further progress in 2014. At such an early stage of the year it is difficult to be very specific about the outcome, but we believe all of our major geographies will move in the right direction."