ALSO revenues and profits jump in H1 results

Distribution heavyweight ALSO has recorded double-digit jumps in both revenues and profits for the first six months of the year.

In the first half of 2020, revenues grew by 13.1 per cent to €5.4bn, while operating profits swelled by 24.7 per cent to €72.09m.

Revenue growth was driven by its northern and eastern Europe region, which saw sales leap by 23 per cent to €2.54bn.

Its central European operations meanwhile saw a more modest five per cent revenue growth to €3.05bn

ALSO highlighted a surge in demand for its Cloud Platform - which recorded sales of €140m during the first six months of the year, an increase of 42.9 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The number of seats using its cloud platform grew by 62.8 per cent during the six-month period to 4.8 million seats, ALSO claims.

It added that it has benefited from many vendors offering customers free trials during the COVID-19 crisis. Around 19 million licences are now being managed on ALSO's Cloud Platform, which it hopes to convert into paying users once the free trial periods end.

ALSO's net debt position reduced to zero in H1, compared to €219.8m in the first half of 2019. It claims that its revolving credit line of €300m remains untouched, with ALSO claiming it will take advantage of any M&A opportunities in the market.

The Swiss distributor has confirmed its target of reaching between €210m and €220m in EBITDA for 2020 and a medium-term target of €250m to €310m.

The company believes that cloud models will become more attractive as part of the "new normal" that the pandemic brings.

ALSO's CEO Gustavo Möller-Hergt gave a hugely optimistic outlook at the start of the COVID-19 crisis, predicting that the IT industry will get a surge of growth during the COVID-19 crisis.

"ALSO is well prepared for these changes. The strategy, the ecosystem, the digital tools and platforms and the strengthening of the organization in the important areas of Solutions, Webshop, Cloud, IoT and sales are the basis for achieving sustainable, profitable growth.

"I would like to thank all our customers, business partners, employees and investors for enabling us to achieve this result and thus create a solid foundation for the future", said Möller-Hergt.

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• Gustavo Möller-Hergt
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