Softcat has no cough from coronavirus

Softcat has delivered a solid set of numbers and indicated that the business has not seen a snuffle from the coronavirus.

The reseller delivered 20.8 per cent growth in revenues to £524.1 million for its half-year ended 31 January. Operating profit climbed by 19.5 per cent, hitting £40.5 million.

During H1, the firm cut the ribbon an a new office in Birmingham, which already has a staff of 20, and increased the overall headcount by just shy of 13 percent.

Softcat CEO Graeme Watt said there had been a 4.2 percent increase in the firm’s customer base over the six month period.

He said there had been no particular pattern to the additional customers, with its numbers expanding across both corporate and public sector accounts. Where Softcat was attracting fresh interest was around its core product proposals, with most users looking for help with software, services and security.

The other focus for the firm has been to get more out of existing accounts, and Watt said those efforts had also borne fruit in the first half, with gross profit per customer increasing by 12.2 percent.

“We have made good progress and continued momentum”, he said. “Our strategy of getting deeper with existing customers is [going well]. We continue to invest in the business to extend our capabilities, driven and informed by customer demand, and to ensure we have the resources to execute on our current and future growth plans.”

He said the company’s customer diversity is going to be important as coronavirus does start to have a greater impact, but as things stand, Watt said there had not been any material impact on the business.

“We have seen a surge of interest from customers in remote working and collaboration tools,” he said, referring to the immediate impact of the virus. We are well positioned to deal with the challenge

“The traits of the business are good ones to have in a time like this.”