Computacenter execs give cautious Q1 assessment

Computacenter, the UK's biggest IT reseller, has announced mixed results for the first quarter of 2007.

At the firm's AGM held today, management reported differing performance across Europe. The loss-making French operation was described as having made "good progress" with run rate losses much reduced. This improvement was forecast to continue through the year.

Computacenter Germany was also said to have done well, with trading ahead of the previous year and results exceeding expectations "despite being held back slightly by losses arising from the two shared datacentre services contracts, although these are much reduced on the second half of 2006".

In the UK, important new contracts were won including a five year outsourcing agreement with BT. However, product sales have apparently failed to meet expectations and the overall UK financial performance in Q1 2007 has been below that achieved in the first quarter of 2006.

Overall, a less than rosy picture was painted, and the group's management hedged their bets for the future. "We continue to anticipate that the full-year performance of the Group will be in line with expectations," they said. "But this remains, as always, dependent upon the overall state of the IT market." ®