Softcat has seen its revenue climb 10 per cent year-on-year due to customer demand for remote working technologies.
The reseller giant reported turnover of £577m for the six months ending 31 January 2021. Gross profit – its key measure of income – grew 20 per cent to £134.5m in the period, while operating profit soared 41 per cent to £57.1m as a result of Covid-related cost savings and a “strong” top line.
Its public sector business remained strong throughout the six months, while demand from corporate clients is “gradually” recovering after taking a hit at the onset of the pandemic.
It attributed this success to customers’ need for security and cloud-based services that cater to remote working.
“Technology has continued to be a focus for investment for many organisations as they have looked to accelerate the security of their operations, manage distributed workforces and migrate to the Cloud as part of a hybrid infrastructure,” it reported in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
“These technologies were already in focus but the pandemic has accelerated the pace of transformation. Customers have worked hard to adapt their infrastructure models towards remote working. They seek to deliver enhanced employee and customer experiences and drive productivity and efficiency improvements whilst protecting their data. These drivers and trends play straight into our portfolio of infrastructure solutions.”
Its Software revenue – which contributed the most to the company’s overall revenue in its H1 2020 – dropped five per cent to £240.1m, while its Services unit also saw a nine per cent decline to £47.7m Hardware sales, however, grew over 32 per cent to £289.2m.
Despite this, the reseller is confident that the remainder of the year will deliver “significantly ahead” of previous expectations.
“We are pleased with the strong performance in the first half of the financial year in which we continued to grow and take share in a market that has remained relatively resilient during the pandemic,” stated Softcat CEO, Graeme Watt.
“We did see a reduction in income from some corporate customers during the last quarter of our previous financial year, but during the current period that effect has gradually diminished. In addition, the business has benefitted from a temporary reduction to some elements of the cost base, although we expect this to normalise as the second half develops
Softcat’s share price jumped as high as 17 per cent on foot of this morning’s announcement.
