23rd Apr 2015 06:48
LONDON (Alliance News) - Computacenter PLC said Thursday said that 2015 should be "a year of progress", as it posted a decline in revenue of 2% in the first quarter mostly due to continued declines in its French business.
Revenue fell to GBP715.9 million in the first quarter of 2015 from GBP733.7 million a year before, although at constant currency it rose 3%. Whilst the company saw strong growth in the UK and good performance in Germany, revenue continued to decline in France.
In France, revenue was down 12% at constant currency to GBP90.8 million from GBP102.9 million, as supply chain revenue was hit by exiting from unprofitable business and refocusing on larger account and services revenue. Computacenter said that whilst there remains "much work to be done" in its French business, it believes it is on the "road to recovery".
In Germany, revenue rose 5% at constant currency. It won an increase in a services contract with an existing customer during the quarter, although this is not expected to contribute to revenue growth until the second half of 2015.
In the UK, revenue rose 7% to GBP361.4 million from GBP339.0 million, with 27% growth in supply chain revenue and 11% growth in services revenue. The second quarter will see the end of a significant part of a long-term contract, but Computacenter expects this to be "more than offset" by the start up of new contracts in the second quarter and throughout 2015.
The company said its currently progressing well in its process of taking on a large amount of new business in the UK, although it is likely to take two more quarters to get through the period of peak workload associated with bringing these customers on board.
"While the performance of our German business in Q1 2015 was not as good as Q4 2014, we are moving in the right direction. In France, whilst still loss making, there has been an improvement on last year's performance which if maintained throughout the year would be satisfactory in the short-term," the company said in a statement.
"While peaks and troughs in our business performance come and go, we believe the strategy we have laid out will enable us to continue the above market performance growth in our Services business for some time to come," Computacenter added.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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