Computacenter's US business bounces back with Q3 outperforming entire H1

Reseller says it has 'comfortably beaten' Q3 last year

Computacenter has "comfortably beaten" last year's performance for Q3, with its US business bouncing back after a challenging H1.

The reseller said it saw strong trading across the whole group, with revenue and profitability "well ahead of our 2018 Q3 year-to-date performance", without taking acquisitions into account.

Computacenter's Technology Sourcing, or product, business continued to flourish in the UK, it added.

"Well-publicised challenging economic conditions are affecting some of our customers. However, to date, this has been more than compensated by the drive to digitalise across the entire marketplace," it said in a trading update.

"While the fourth quarter is always the most critical to the year's performance, the board's confidence with its current expectations continues to strengthen as we progress through the year."

This is the first update Computacenter has issued since August, when a positive note showed that revenue had climbed by one fifth. However, the US business, while profitable, had "underperformed".

In the latest report, Computacenter said that the US arm, built on the acquisition of FusionStorm, saw "a strong return to both revenue and profitability growth with the performance in the third quarter alone being materially greater in absolute profitability than the first half of the year".

Computacenter's share price rose more than nine per cent this morning.

In Europe, Computacenter said that a dip in its German private sector business was offset by gains in the public sector, which in France had performed better than expected.

It did however highlight the loss of a large managed services contract in France that would have a "small impact" on the group.