44 straight quarters of sales and profit growth for Softcat

Marlow-based reseller says growth accelerated in its fiscal second-half as it reports first set of full-year numbers since IPO

Softcat has recorded a double-digit hike in both sales and profits in its first set of full-year results as a public company, saying growth actually accelerated in the second half.

Revenues for the 12 months ending 31 July 2016 rose 13 per cent to £672.4m, with adjusted operating profit hiking 15 per cent to £46.8m.

Softcat's key measure of growth, gross profit, also rose by 17.5 per cent, which CEO Martin Hellawell said demonstrates that the Marlow-based reseller is still pocketing "significant" market share from competitors.

"Softcat has now delivered 44 consecutive quarters of revenue and profit growth," Hellawell said.

"This includes both the third and fourth quarters of our financial year when demand from our customers remained solid despite the distraction of the referendum and subsequent political developments. In fact, the company grew at an even faster rate during the second half."

Softcat floated on the LSE last November and was promoted to the FTSE 250 in March.

In its first financial year as a public company, Softcat grew headcount by an incremental 133 people, and expanded customer numbers by 7.5 per cent.

The firm said it saw higher growth in the more complex solutions areas of security, networking and datacentre infrastructure than in the more commodity workplace computing area of its business. This helped push its gross profits margins up from 17.2 to 18 per cent year on year.

Although its SMB/mid-market and enterprise segments both grew "strongly", public sector was the star of the show, expanding from 26 to 29 per cent of total revenues during the year. Softcat claimed its reliance on individual accounts remains low, with its top spender accounting for only one per cent of revenue in 2016.

Services revenue increased from 14 to 15 per cent of total sales, owing partly to a growth in the volume of vendor services it resold, as well as an increase in its own services capability, the firm said.