Beancounters at analyst outfit Context have added up some numbers and reached the conclusion that the Channel has been doing rather well.
The Context ChannelWatch 2018 report surveyed resellers across 14 countries, including the UK and mainland Europe.
Brexit uncertianty caused the UK to buck the reseller optimism trend, with optimism about the year ahead lower than it was in 2017.
There were also signs in the report that the number of resellers had stabilised after a three per cent decline last year. Nearly half of the firms surveyed had been going for more than 15 years, underlining that this is a mature market.
Drilling down into where the channel growth is coming from business services topped the list. It changes depending on area with manufacturing strong in the UK and Eastern Europe expecting retail to deliver the growth.
Context global managing director Adam Simon said it was reassuring to see the IT channel as a whole in pretty good health as we head into the second half of 2018.
“However, despite the optimism in the market for the coming 12 months, challenges persist: not least in areas like financing, staff recruitment and retention, GDPR compliance and the threat to distribution posed by etailers”, he added.
