Computacenter forecasts financial year to be 'well ahead' of 2018

Services giant's US business now 'in line with expectations' after wobbly H1

Computacenter's overall fiscal 2019 has been fuelled by the recovery of its US business and the absence of the "negative impacts" that hampered its second half of last year.

The services giant stated that revenue and profitability "remain well ahead" of 2018's figure on a like-for-like basis according to an unscheduled trading update for the 11 months to 30 November 2019.

It expects the full-year trading result for 2019 to be ahead of current market expectations which were assessed at being £136.2m on 9 December.

The firm - which took the top spot in CRN's Top VARs 2019 - entered the US market in October 2018 with the acquisition of FusionStorm, in a deal worth $90m (£68.3m).

The US business had a challenging H1 but has "bounced back" in the second half of the year, with Computacenter praising its contribution to revenue growth.

"The ‘negative impacts' that hampered Computacenter's growth in H2 2018 have either not been seen this year or have been somewhat negated, the services titan added.

"The strong 2019 performance is coming from Computacenter's established businesses and, in the second half of the year, from the acquired business in the US which is now performing in line with our expectations following a difficult start to the year," it stated.

"The group has not seen a repeat of the negative impact that occurred in the second half of 2018 due to contract provisions and these existing difficult contracts continue to perform in line with, or slightly ahead of, our expectations.

"Computacenter's board acknowledge, as is the case every year, that there is still a significant amount to do in December, which is always our busiest month of the year. However, visibility on this critical month's outturn is starting to improve."

TechMarketView analyst Kate Hanaghan said that the final month of the year is unlikely to pose a challenge to Computacenter's momentum.

"As the firm races through its final (and arguably most important) month of the year, it's hard to see that it will lose significant momentum at this point," she stated.