CDW UK sales down 'high single digits'

CEO reveals reseller has cut two per cent of its circa 10,000-strong workforce

CDW UK saw its UK sales decline "high single digits" in Q3 as government support programmes started to wind down, the US reseller has said.

Overall CDW sales for the quarter ending 30 September dipped 3.1 per cent year on year to $4.8bn.

CDW groups its UK operation in with its Canadian arm. Combined, the pair saw sales dip 8.2 per cent year on year to $465.6m.

Execs opened up on the UK business on an earnings call, transcribed by Seeking Alpha, revealing that sales fell "high single digits" in constant currency.

CEO Christine Leahy said: "UK sales declined high single digits in constant currency. U.K. corporate and public channels declined as government support programs ramped down during the quarter.

"We have some government stimulus money that is rolling off and that is tending to have an impact that we're seeing.

"Add to that lockdowns and the economic commercial impact that has; we do worry about that."

Leahy also revealed that CDW cut two per cent of its workforce in September. The reseller's employee base is around 10,000, according to its website.

It incurred charges of $8.5 million in relation to the redundancies.

She added: "Those are hard decisions for CDW in particular; It's just the second time in our history that we've produced the workforce.

"We really need to ensure we've got the resources to continue to evolve with customers in their most important priorities.

"We wanted to make sure that there's capacity in the high demand areas to support the future growth and continue investing in those more emerging areas. So while we have cutbacks some positions, we also are hiring in those areas that we think are critical to our future growth."

CDW saw revenue rise in its US public sector subsidiary, which equates for over half of sales, but saw sales drop in its corporate and SMB arms in the US.

Different segments for the UK and Canada are not broken out.

"The diversity of our customer end market serve us well when macro or other external challenges impact various industries and customers differently," Leahy said.

CDW declined to provide guidance for its Q4, claiming the "macroeconomic outlook for the near term and for the foreseeable future remains uncertain" and also citing "wildcards", including the COVID-19 pandemic, the US election and UK-EU trade negotiations.