UK remains problem child for Computacenter in Q1

Firm publishes results earlier than planned due to good performance overall in the group, but the UK lets the side down

Computacenter's UK business let the side down in its first quarter, despite the overall group performance meaning the firm published its results early in order to talk about its improved outlook.

For the three months ending 31 March, the overall Computacenter group saw revenue rise 16 per cent annually, driven by a 14 per cent hike in services sales, and a 17 per cent boost in services revenue over the same period. Exact revenue figures were not disclosed in the stock exchange notice.

Although the group did well overall, the UK was the only one of its three largest businesses - the others being France and Germany - to post an annual sales slump.

The UK business saw sales slide one per cent annually during the three months, thanks to a four per cent slump in both its services and supply chain business. The German and French businesses saw their revenues jump 23 per cent and six per cent over the same period.

The UK let the team down for the whole of 2016 too. Revenue in the region for the year fell 1.1 per cent to just under £1.4bn, but France and Germany enjoyed stronger performances over the same period.

The company said its outlook for the first half is looking good, but admitted that is partly due to the weaker first half a year ago.

"We are clearly encouraged by the group's performance in the first quarter in all our major geographies but particularly in Germany," the firm said in a trading update. "Our performance in 2016, while reasonable in the year as a whole, was weaker in the first half which does create a less difficult half-on-half comparison. This will mean higher profit growth in the first half of 2017 than the second half and will return Computacenter to a more historical norm in the balance of our profits between the first and second half of the year.

"Our customers' drive to digitalise their operations is creating significant demand, particularly for our Professional Services and Supply Chain businesses. This is currently more than compensating for the pressure exerted by customers to reduce long-term support costs that has a potential negative effect on our Managed Services business. However, this pressure is felt across the industry and the companies that deal with it best will gain market share."