South-Africa based Datatec has updated the market on trading in the first four months of its FY13 (i.e. March-June). The company says that, despite what it sees as a “weakening economic environment”, its forecasts for the full-year (to Feb 2013) remain unchanged. Shares in the company are also unchanged in trading this morning.
Datatec’s global reselling subsidiary, Westcon, managed to grow in all regions in the period, but has felt margin pressures in Europe and North America. However, margin expansion in developing countries is proving a big help and will be particularly critical in what looks likely to remain an uncertain sales period ahead (see for example Cisco sees caution and uncertainty ahead).
Meanwhile Logicalis, with its emphasis on growing its services business, had a “relatively strong start to the year”. Revenue and operating profit were both up year-on-year in the period. Most noteworthy is the comment that the UK “has been good despite weak economic conditions”. That sounds like a welcome improvement compared to the FY12 performance of Logicalis UK (see Logicalis still finding UK tough going). We look forward to more detail in due course.