Jul 29, 2014 - Emmen
ALSO Group: Positive development in difficult environment
ICT market
According to the CONTEXT market research institute, in the first half of 2014, the value of the ICT distribution market in the regions that are relevant for ALSO grew by 5.9 percent from the previous year. However, there were wide differences in the performance of the various product categories. While development in the market for desktop computing was extremely positive (+21.3 percent), resulting from the withdrawal of support for the Windows XP operating system, the Server Computing product category developed extremely negatively (-14.5 percent), as a consequence of the increased use of cloud services.
In the first half of 2014, the ALSO Group could expand its net sales by 7.9 percent. There were pleasing increases in the market shares in the Desktop Computing sector from 35.0 percent to 37.2 percent, and in the Software sector from 16.5 percent to 17.1 percent.
Central Europe market segment
In the Central Europe market segment, net sales increased by 7.8 percent from the previous year, to 2 544.2 million euros. Profit before tax (EBT) fell from 27.9 million euros to 25.7 million euros (-8.0 percent). The EBT margin declined from 1.2 percent to 1.0 percent. This was attributable to the increased price pressure in France and Switzerland.
Northern/Eastern Europe market segment
In the Northern/Eastern Europe market segment, net sales increased by 6.2 percent from the previous year, to 806.8 million euros. Norway and Sweden contributed the most growth and could further expand their strong competitive position. Profit before tax (EBT) improved from -1.4 million euros to 5.5 million euros, and the EBT margin from -0.2 percent to 0.7 percent. This was mainly achieved by the successful restructuring of Finland.
Acquisitions
The acquisition of ALSO Cloud Oy in March 2014 underscores ALSO's excellent positioning in growth markets as well as the Group's capability of satisfying the demand for cloud solutions. At the same time, ALSO has sharpened its profile and is further expanding its "market place".
A further milestone was the acquisition in May 2014 of Alpha International B.V. The aim of this acquisition is to strengthen and further develop the expertise in the Supply business. In addition, ALSO will further expand its existing activities in the Benelux countries, in order to occupy a leading role in the future.
"With the purchase of ALSO Cloud Oy and Alpha International B.V., we have reaffirmed our MORE strategy. Our team can be proud of the results and of the acquisitions we have made. It has been demonstrated once more how attractive our business model is", states Gustavo Möller-Hergt.
Outlook for 2014
For 2014, for the entire IT market (excluding IT and telecommunication services) in the ALSO countries (excluding Baltics), the Gartner market research institute forecasts end-user spending to decline by 0.6 percent compared to previous year. Furthermore, in the Devices (-4.0 percent) and Data Center Systems (-3.2 percent) sectors, which are traditionally important for ICT distribution, Gartner forecasts decreases, which can only partly be compensated by the Software sector (+5.1 percent).
For the second half-year, ALSO expects demanding conditions and further price pressure in the traditional product categories. They will be partly compensated by the internal projects for profit improvement and process optimization as well as the Groupwide digitization initiative. For fiscal year 2014 – barring unforeseen events – the company expects Group net profit of 50 to 55 million euros.
