NATIONAL SURVeY
pressure on his company to replicate Westcoast’s vendor list. “They supply
Top Irish IT distributors
a number of vendors in the UK that we do not carry in Ireland but there has
By sales Euros (m) based on IT Europa estimates
been no pressure on us to follow suit.”
Company 2006 Headcount
The target for 2008 is between 8% and 10% expansion, which based on the
Clarity 127.30 60
performance of the top two over the last year would give Clarity a fair chance
Sharptext Ltd 120.25 100
of claiming top spot in the Irish distribution market. MicroWarehouse
46.25 27
Midia recorded sales growth in excess of 20% over the last year to €45m. Midia Distribution Ltd
44.69 50
Headcount also rose from 35 to 41, with accumulated profits of €2.6m boosted Osmosis Ireland
37.40 29
by a surplus of €1.4m over the last 12 months. A statement in the company ASbIS Ltd (Ireland)
23.60 22
accounts said the directors ‘expect the company to continue to grow in the
TNS Distribution
23.00 28
SPICeRS Ireland Ltd
coming financial year’.
20.00 60
Commtech managing director Justin Owens claimed even more impressive - such as security - are growing at a healthy, albeit lower, rate and as in any
growth, suggesting that revenue was up 42% during 2007 and that the plan was mature market the margins tend to get squeezed as growth slows.”
to grow even more rapidly over the next 12 months. Commtech added EMC and Juniper to its portfolio during the second half
of 2007. While it is the sole distributor for many of its products in Ireland,
Owens admitted that resellers are aware of the discounts that are available
“Westcoast acquiring Clarity changed the balance of
in the UK from large multinational distributors “so we do have to constantly
UK-based distributors in Ireland.”
adjust our pricing to match these. On the other hand, most of the UK
Paul White, Sharptext
distributors we come across have no presence on the ground - or at best a
very limited presence - and as such do not add much value to the resellers.”
He says the company has benefited from its focus on a number of high He believes the market has become more competitive over the past year,
growth areas such as virtualisation, storage, WAN compression and disaster but not necessarily because of competition from across the Irish Sea. “We
recovery. “These are the areas where we see growth in 2008. The virtualisation tend to find a life cycle in products where in the early days (when revenues are
space is very hot at present, but we are seeing competition starting to emerge relatively low) the margins are good and as the products mature and their user
with Microsoft and Citrix releasing products. Our traditional business areas base increases the margins erode and competition increases.”
For those companies who describe themselves as value-added distributors,
the need to live up to this tag has never been greater, says Michael Callaghan,
managing director Ireland CMS Peripherals. “Other concerns include
direct selling from vendors and increased margin pressure from UK based
competitors. Over-distribution is also a factor.”
In addition to virtualisation and security, he sees developments in green
computing, optical and flash hard disk drives as the most significant trends in
the Irish market. “We are seeing a lot of focus on developments around DC
power and general reductions in power requirements for AC powered devices.
Higher capacity optical offerings utilising blue/violet lasers, such as Blu-ray
and DVD HD, are becoming very popular and there is continued growth in the
deployment of flash-based HDDs.”
CMS, for which Callaghan forecasts double digit growth for 2008, added
29 feb 2008 23
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