Esprinet says sales will surpass €4bn this year following best quarterly results in three years

Southern European distribution giant Esprinet has forecast it will surpass €4bn in sales in 2020, after its best quarter in three years in each of its markets.

EBITDA was up 16 per cent year on year for the six months ending 30 June to €24m, while sales also rose seven per cent to €1.83bn.

The Vimercate-headquartered firm is the largest IT distributor in Spain and Italy, and is also operational in Portugal.

Its share price rose 11 per cent after its H1 figures were published on Monday.

CEO Alessandro Cattanni said that "strong growth in demand" for PCs and smartphones in May and June were "the main driver of growth" in its H1 figures, despite a "challenging" April.

In H1, smartphones sales rose 23 per cent, while PC sales grew by 12 per cent.

"We have been able to take advantage of this opportunity on all our reference markets, achieving the highest market share of the last three years and making it the main driver of growth in our revenue" he said.

Cattanni added that COVID-19 supply chain disruptions in China and South Korea mentioned in Q1 have been "contained" by government interventions in each market.

April was the worst month for such disruptions, when Esprinet sales dropped 19 per cent. It took sales in both May and June to offset the slump.

Cattanni told CPI in July that his decision to acquire the sixth largest distributor in Spain, €179.9m GTI Group earlier this year has also been key to the company thriving despite the pandemic.

In its H1 report, Esprinet reaffirmed its commitment to continue to expand in the region.

"We continue to develop our portfolio in areas with the greatest long-term growth potential: the acquisition of GTI, the leading distributor of "cloud" software and solutions in Spain, for which the Spanish Anti-Trust authorisation was obtained, is an important step in this direction."

Esprinet revealed that sales for July and August were up 32 year on year.

For its full FY2020, the company expects sales to rise nine per cent to €4.3bn.

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• Topics
• Distribution
• Southern Europe
• Esprinet
• Financial results
• Italy
• Spain
• Portugal
• PCs
• smartphones
• Alessandro Cattanni
• COVID-19