Insight's EMEA biz grips controls, keeps reseller on the tracks

Currency headwind fails to ruin Q2 performance

Insight Enterprise's EMEA operation was the company's sales growth engine in Q2 despite some strong currency headwinds.

The global reseller giant turned in a decent set of group financials, particularly in light of the economic meltdown, with sales up four per cent to $1.53bn (£983m) for the period ended 30 June.

Operating profit was up two per cent to $55.3m (£35.5m) and net income was unchanged on the same period a year ago at $35.3m.

North America sales of $993m were flat on a year ago despite the buy of Ensynch - software grew 12 per cent rise partially offsetting by declines in hardware and services. Operating profit was up nine per cent to $39.1m.

However, the business in EMEA was up 14 per cent to $459.7m including numbers from Inmac, which Insight swallowed earlier this year, but excluding the currency headwind sales rose 24 per cent.

Operating profits in the region fell to $10.8m from $13m a year earlier, as Insight recorded $1m net of tax of severance and restructuring expenses.

Stuart Fenton, EMEA president at Insight, told The Channel it had filed organic growth of around 17 per cent in EMEA.

"Almost all of the countries across the region performed well in the quarter, we saw particular strength with Cisco, tablet computing and some strong wins in the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement space."

Insight rolled out kit reselling operations in Germany and the Netherlands in Q2.

Fenton said this spurred EMEA hardware sales, up 31 per cent in the three months, as software and services grew eight and 13 per cent respectively.

Stripping out foreign exchange conversions sales of hardware, software and services were up 35 per cent, 20 per cent and 22 per cent.

The smaller Asia Pacific unit was flat with the sale volume a year ago at $76.5m and the profit number of $5.4m. ®