Insight holding out

Insight Enterprises, the IT mail-order giant, has reported a decline in year on year earnings of 64 per cent.

Net sales were up 3.4 per cent to $832.9m for final quarter of 2005, most of the increase appearing to come from the SME business in the US. But a mealy-mouthed press statement said: "Growth rates in our large enterprise business were clearly affected by a very competitive pricing environment."

Make of that what you will. Non-GAAP earnings were up 9 per cent to $16.8m. The difference in GAAP and non-GAAP operating margins was just over one per cent. Restructuring helped it reduce costs by three tenths of a percent.

Insight UK reported gross profit as a percentage of sales of 13.8 per cent, a slight increase nudged up by inventory write-downs. The growth was reversed to a slight decline in the conversation to dollars though, with final reckoning at $109.6m sales for the quarter. ®