Digi-Key has seen distribution sales in Europe jump year-on-year by 22% in the second quarter of the year.
The strongest European market for the online distributor was Germany where sales in Q2 were 25% up on the same quarter a year ago.
“Total global sales growth increased by over seven percent this quarter thanks in part to our developing customer base in European, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries,” said Mark Larson, president and chief operating officer of Digi-Key.
"This year European sales in particular have increased by over 22%,” said Larson.
Sales in Italy were also strongly up, at 16% year-on-year.
The sales increases come as Digi-Key moved to be an internet only component distributor.
“In the past year, we have implemented positive changes to our business strategy,” said Larson.
“One of these positive changes was the decision to discontinue the print catalogue in favour of a more easily accessible online format,” said Larson.
In the quarter it stopped distribution of the over 2,900-page print catalogue and focused its sales activities on its websites.
Digi-Key is the first global catalogue distributor to stop production of its print catalogue.
The distributor has seen the majority of its sales made via its websites for a number of years. In the UK the figure is over 90% of all sales transacted via the web.
So stopping printing of the catalogue, which adds expense to the business, seemed inevitable.
It will now offer its products exclusively online beginning immediately.
This is part of a structural change which is taking place in the component distribution market.
There has been a trend across the market away from the catalogue and onto the internet for distributor like RS, Farnell, Digi-Key and Mouser.
Digi-Key is the first of the big four catalogue distributors to end the life of its print catalogue.