UK reseller giant Softcat saw its sales and profits rise over the past year.
CEO Graeme Watt said revenue for the 12 months ending 31 July 2021 stood at £1.16 billion, an increase of 7.4 percent, while gross invoiced income stood at £1.94 billion which was up 17.7 percent from the prior year.
Gross profit rose 17.2 percent to reach £276 million while operating profit increased by 27.4 percent to £119 million.
Watt identified “strong public sector demand” and “further recovery in the corporate sector” as two factors which were behind the growth of the business over the past year but said the company is in a good position across all sectors.
He thought the figures were related to the fact that companies are returning to some level of normality in terms of the way they trade and the way they behave with parties.
Watt said Softcat’s customer base has grown by 2.3 percent while its headcount also rose by an additional ten percent. Meanwhile, basic earnings per share reached 48.4p, up from 38.2p.
The results showed that revenue for software and services was down 3.6 percent and 14.1 percent respectively but gross invoiced income, which Softcat said more accurately reflected how the business was performing in those sectors because it is adjusted prior to the IFRS 15 accounting standard and for deferred and accrued revenue items, was up 15 percent and 17.6 percent for the same categories.
Watt added that product shortages have led to “lengthened lead times” but that the business was “managing fine” and was not expecting the shortages “to get worse”.
Softcat saw its gross invoiced income for hardware rise 23.6 percent to £566 million and Watt believes the demand could continue, while identifying other sectors such as security as key growth areas in the future.
