New UK entrant ALSO: 6 things you might not know

Europe's largest homegrown IT distributor has landed in the UK. But who is ALSO?

Swiss distribution giant is officially launching its cloud platform to the UK channel today.

Here are six things you may not know about the firm.

1) It's Europe's largest homegrown IT distributor

ALSO is a European distribution goliath, with 2021 revenues of €12.4bn.

To put that in perspective, that's more than twice the turnover of any other homegrown European distie, including Exertis, Westcoast, Esprinet or Exclusive Networks.

Boasting 4,000 employees, it claims to carry more than 700 vendors and serve around 120,000 resellers (generating around half its business from computing - see slide, bottom).

2) The ALSO name was a happy accident

Meaning ‘so' in German, the ALSO moniker only came about after the founders' original idea for a name - ABC - was rejected by the Swiss authorities.

"The Swiss, living up to their reputation of being very profound but also quite slow, met and said: "Also, was machen wir jetzt" - meaning: So, what now? And this is how ALSO got its name. At least this is how the story is being told in the Swiss Alps," a company representative told us.

3) The company is valued at over £2bn

Based in Emmen, Switzerland (pictured below), ALSO is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and counts Düsseldorf-based Droege Group as its main shareholder.

Its market capitalisation currently stands at around CHF2.4bn (£2.16bn).

4) Its UK operation will be based in Amersham

Although ALSO's UK launch centres on its cloud marketplace, the Swiss distribution giant confirmed that it is putting feet on the UK street.

The initial plan is to employ around eight staff out of Amersham.

5) ALSO is intent on pan-European expansion

Originally focusing on DACH, ALSO has expanded aggressively through M&A in recent years and is now active in 30 European countries (serving a total of 144 countries worldwide via PaaS partners).

The UK is just one of several new territories added in recent years. ALSO acquired its way into Italy and Portugal at the end of 2021. It also bolstered its Hungarian presence last year via M&A.

6) ALSO used to have an alliance with Westcoast

ALSO was once represented indirectly in the UK via the European Wholesale Group, a band of European distributors who ganged to together to form critical mass and share best practice.

UK distributor Westcoast was one of the EWG's four original members, but left in 2003. Five years later remaining members ALSO, Esprinet and Copaco disbanded the EWG as they doubled down on efforts to expand individually.

Two decades on, ALSO finds itself going head to head with Westcoast in its home market (Westcoast, incidentally, recently expanded into ALSO's core German market).