Reporting higher sales and margins in Q3, plans for cloud platform Distributor ABC Data says it is on its way to reach its targets of reaching a 25% share in the IT distribution market in Poland and 10% share in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, reporting higher revenues and return on sales in Q3.
Compared to Q3 2015, the revenues was higher by 70 million PLN and amounted to 1091 million PLN (€250m). An 18% higher profit margin gave a return of 61.8 million PLN reaching a 5.7% margin.
“Achieving sales increase yr/yr in traditionally the weakest Q3 is definitely a difficult task which only a few can complete,” says Ilona Weiss (above), CEO. The consolidated revenues of the Group were influenced mostly by the increased share of domestic sales executed both by ABC Data and iSource. But other parts of the business in eastern Europe also saw growth: in the first 9 months in Hungary sales increased by 125%, in Romania by 72%, and in Lithuania by 13%.
The EBITDA results were influenced by the increase of operational costs which resulted from expenditure on the performance of pro-development initiatives, from development expenditure and excessive costs in some business areas. Ilona Weiss: “In Q3 2016 we signed an investment agreement for purchase of the controlling interest in S4E. We also intensified activities related to the development of the e-commerce tools. We undertook a number of initiatives which have already started influencing positively the results of the Group; however, their influence will be more visible in subsequent quarters. Currently, we concentrate on implementing optimisation actions planned for Q4 2016 and the whole 2017.”
Among other new plans is the provision of a cloud platform early in 2017: Juliusz Niemotko, Vice-President of the Management Board of ABC Data: ”Similarly to other leading global distributors, ABC Data is going to have a modern platform for sales of cloud products and services. We are planning to launch it in Q1 2017”.