Europe's tail wags Tech Data's dog

The falling dollar and new money from Azlan helped Tech Data to easily exceed year-on-year net income and revenues for Q4, ended 31 January, 2004. The distie giant had net sales of $4.9bn, 22 per cent higher than last Q4's $4bn.

Net income was $38.9m, against a net loss of $303m last time around. Last year's Q4 had a whopping non-cash goodwill impairment charge of of $328.9m and net loss of $7.3m tied to the disposal of subsidiaries. Strip out the bad stuff and a like-for-like comparison would have produced a profit of $33.1m.

Q4 net sales in Europe, by far its biggest territory, were up 40.5 per cent (18.5 per cent on a local currency basis) to $3bn, and 2.1 per cent up in America. on Q4 last year. European results are benefiting from the inclusion of Azlan, Europe's biggest networking distie acquired last year, and incorporated into results for the last ten months.

Net income for the full year was $104.1m on sales of $17.4bn. ®