Premier Farnell has reported strong double digit sales growth in mainland Europe. Significantly, the problematic UK market also grew by 4.4% in the first quarter of the year.
“Our development into Eastern Europe continues to exceed expectations with particularly strong progress in web sales,” said company CEO, Harriet Green.
Green highlighted the importance of the distributor’s new agreement with Altera. “We have secured an agreement to become their high service distributor in Asia Pacific and Europe,” said Green.
Asia Pacific performance continues to fuel our growth plans for the region and reaffirm the importance of our investment, delivering sales growth of 12.6% in the first quarter.
Farnell saw growth in North America during the quarter with Newark sales growth of 6.4% on the prior year.
Pre-tax profit jumped by 17% on group sales of £199m for the quarter.
Green said that growth of online sales remains “critical” for the future of the catalogue distributor.
“The web is critical to our future and its importance continues to grow,” said Green.
Web sales grew by 31% year-on-year. Web sales now account for more than 40% of total sales in Europe and Asia Pacific.