DiData profits rocket

Networking reseller Dimension Data Holdings has reported a 68 per cent rise in profit for the first half of its financial year.

The South African-based company, which is listed in the UK and is Cisco's biggest reseller outside the US, said it made a pre-profit of $159.6 million before exceptional items for the six months ended March 31 2001. This slightly beat expectations, and compared to $95.1 million for the same period the previous year.

Sales grew to $1.2 billion from $814.9 million a year earlier.

UK sales fell to $140 million in the six-months, from $163 million, with the company partly laying the blame on longer sales cycles.

Revenue grew in all other regions, with Asia up 38 per cent to $291 million, Europe at $191 million from $30 million, and US sales growing to $144 million from $34 million.

DiData CEO Jeremy Ord said the company had been able to grow organically despite the slowing economy.

And according to Ord, Cisco's woes won't affect the reseller too much. "If you analyse Cisco's results, they have been strongly affected by their telco business," he said.

"Of our total sales, 28 per cent were telcos, but only seven per cent is product....Cisco's having problems but most of it is emanating from telcos' networks. We don't sell Cisco products for carrier networks."

The company also expects to grab market share from rivals during the current general slump in the economy.

Regarding the future, DiData, which beat Compaq to buy computer services firm Proxicom earlier this month, said that, while market adoption rates were "less predictable", "prospects based on the pipeline going into the second half of the year remain good." ®

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