7th Mar 2014 07:53
LONDON (Alliance News) - Computer hardware supplier Northamber PLC reported a wider loss for the first half of its financial year as its revenues dropped steeply and it counted the cost of a wide-range restructuring it is undergoing in an attempt to become less reliant on the declining PC hardware market.
The company posted a pretax loss of GBP690,000 in the six months to end-December, compared with a GBP310,000 loss a year earlier, as revenue declined to GBP30.3 million, from GBP41.6 million. Its gross margin declined to 6.7%, from 7.7%.
The company blamed the revenue fall on the continued decline of its computer hardware business, its main business.
Northamber is seeking to move away from its dependency on the declining PC market by growing its non-PC activities and modifying its business model to include less hardware-dependent products.
"However, this has inevitably necessitated wide ranging and costly re-structuring," Chairman David Phillips said in a statement. "The vindication of the changes we have made and are making, however, can be seen as the foundations of a return to a more worthwhile future."
The company said it has achieved ongoing overhead savings of GBP770,000 per year, nearly half of which is related to savings in personnel costs after redundancy payments.
Northamber said that the start of 2014 had seen notable improvements, which gave it confidence that it was achieving progress.
Northamber maintained its interim dividend at 0.3 pence, flat on the previous year.
Shares in Northamber last traded down 4.6% at 31.50 pence.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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