Tag: Europe

Avnet starts new unit

Posted on June 30, 2014 by - Moving People, News

avnettsMega distie Avnet said it has set up a new business unit in the European, Middle East and Africa markets.

The dvision, called Avnet Security and Networking Solutions (ASNS), is intended to boost its share of this sector and will include the opening of specialist technical and commercial competence centres in the region.

Network security is predicted to be worth over $10 billion in revenues, according to market research firm IDC.

The first commercial competence centre will open in the Netherlands this quarter, and be a hub for delivering security and networking services.

Graeme Watt, president of Avnet in EMEA said his company will use existing people in the company to bring in external specialist skills to bolster the market.

EMEA workstation market rebounds in Q2

Posted on September 11, 2013 by - News

pc-sales-slumpThe PC market might be down, but there are still a few bright spots. Gamers haven’t gone anywhere and long-term forecasts indicate they will continue spending plenty of hard earned cash on new toys. Professionals are another breed of PC user that can’t afford not to upgrade.

According to IDC’s quarterly workstation tracker, shipments of personal workstations in EMEA grew 3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2013. The previous five quarters were in the red.

Interestingly, the growth is not coming from desktop workstations. It remained flat, with 0.1 percent growth. However, the mobile workstation segment saw 10.9 percent growth. Mobile appears to be the flavour of the day in many markets, especially in the Nordics. Mobile workstations are quite a bit more expensive than their desktop counterparts, and they aren’t as easy to upgrade or customize, but the appeal of taking a workstation on the road is simply too compelling for many people.

“In addition to tighter competition over the last year and a half, the major workstation vendors – Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Lenovo – were facing tougher market conditions,” said Mohamed Hefny, senior analyst with IDC’s systems and infrastructure department. “The sovereign debt crisis forced the public sector to follow strict policies regarding hardware investments, financial uncertainty pushed the enterprise sector to extend the refreshment cycle for another year, and SMBs often opted for high-end commercial PCs, as the performance gap with workstations is reduced when they are paired with professional discrete graphic cards.”

The 2014 outlook is even better. IDC expects 6.2 percent year-on-year growth in volume and 3.2 percent growth in value. As major European markets emerge from recession, demand for workstations is expected to pick up even further.

IDC: EU printer market returns to growth

Posted on August 8, 2013 by - News

inkjetIDC figures have noted that the printing market in Western Europe has returned to growth with commercial markets leading the charge, and laser shipments grew yearly by 11.6 percent.

Inkjet shipments remained flat, increasing a smidgen at 0.1 percent for Q2 2013 compared to the same time last year. Multi function printers impacted on the inkjet market.

Overall, the market increased 4.3 percent to 4.69 million units in Q2 2013 compared to the same time last year, but strong competition meant a 3.3 percent drop in dollar value for the market. Most market growth can be attributed to laser products, and IDC believes this demonstrates a returning confidence on spending in business markets. Laser printers and MFPs experienced double digit growth.

Colour products enjoyed the most growth at 17.3 percent, with share in A4 and A3 segments for both printers and MFPs increasing.

Monochrome printing did grow 10.1 percent but the A3 market here continued a decline.

Business inkjets increased yearly by 22.5 percent but inkjets for plebs contracted. High speed inkjets grew a formidable 57.1 percent.

The British market declined overall year on year by three percent, with continued declines in consumer inkjets. But there were signs of hope in the laser markets, increasing 16.9 percent year on year, and apart from A3 products there was growth across all segments.

Businesses were buying inkjet printers in the UK too, growing at 25.6 percent – compared to consumer inkjet spending which declined 11.3 percent.

European PC market falls 20 percent in Q2

Posted on August 8, 2013 by - News

pc-sales-slumpThe European PC market may be about to bottom out, but before it does several vendors will take massive hits,  research from Gartner reveals. PC shipments in Western Europe totalled just 10.9 million units last quarter, down 19.8 percent year-on-year.

Gartner concluded that the death of netbook PCs, inventory woes caused by the transition to Haswell and Windows 8.1 all played a role in the decline. Acer and Asus were particularly hard hit. Acer’s sales were down 44.7 percent, while Asus took a 41.7 percent plunge. Acer sold just 1.3 million boxes in Q2, down from 2.36 million in the same quarter last year. It faired a bit better in Britain, with a 21.4 percent drop. Asus managed 850,000 units, down from 1.45 million last year.

HP still leads the way with 2.28 million units and a 20.8 percent market share. Unlike Acer and Asus, it managed to maintain its market share, but overall shipments were down 17.4 percent compared to a year ago. Lenovo was the only big vendor to end the quarter on a positive note. It shipped 1.26 million units, up from 1.185 million last year. That was enough to boost its market share from 7.8 to 11.5 percent.

Dell also did relatively well. Although its shipments were down 1.1 percent to 1.17 million units, Dell upped its market share from 8.7 percent to 10.7 percent.

gartner-UKPC-2Q13

Although all segments of the PC market declined, notebook sales saw a 23.9 percent drop, while desktop sales declined 12.2 percent. The consumer market saw a 25.8 percent dip, while sales of professional rigs were down 13.5 percent.

Gartner concluded that the UK mobile PC market lost 25 percent of its volume since 2010. PC shipments in Blighty totalled 2.2 percent units in Q1, down 13 percent from Q1 2012.

“The second quarter marked the 11th consecutive quarter of decline in the U.K.,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “During this time the notebook market has shrunk nearly 25 percent in unit volume. The U.K. notebook market totaled over 2 million units in the second quarter of 2010 and has now reached just under 1.5 million units.”

Atwal said PC vendors are now at a “make or break point” in the industry, as the product move to new hardware and Windows 8.1 could turn things around. He also pointed out that the professional market did a lot better than the consumer market.

However, it looks like things will get worse before they get better.

Avnet wins EU Cisco contract

Posted on August 5, 2013 by - News

avnettsMassive global distie Avnet has won the first EMEA contract from Cisco to supply Cisco UCS servers running SAP HANA, which will let resellers approach SAP customers all over Europe.

UCS lets customers run data analytics and warehousing in real time, quick, as well as providing the base for running other SAP enterprise applications on SAP HANA. The idea is that by using Cisco UCS for SAP HANA, customers will get simplified management, scalability, operational automation, and a range of quality storage options, helping them exercise greater control of critical enterprise applications.

Avnet EMEA veep Miriam Murphy said in a statement that in-memory computing should be expanding rapidly in Europe, as companies look for products that will help them make data driven business decisions quickly and on the fly.

“We can install the SAP in-memory computing platform and ship the rack mounted servers in as little as three days from receiving an order on most models,” Murphy said, “placing our partners in pole position to address new SAP customers”

Cisco’s director of partner operations for EMEA said the company had been working with SAP on HANA since 2010, and chose Avnet for the first European distributor considering its experience with Cisco and capabilities to built to order, plus the company’s logistic strengths.

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EU firms complacent on data risk

Posted on July 2, 2013 by - News

ironmountainCABusinesses, overwhelmed by an ever increasing surge of data to deal with, are in danger of becoming complacent about data loss.

A survey from Iron Mountain and PwC has determined there is an increasing awareness in information risk, but many SMEs just don’t have the tools in place to deal with the reams of data and in multiple formats. There is also a danger of more sophisticated security threats as well as needing to treat information management as essential to business.

Under half of businesses surveyed in the 2013 Risk Maturity Index said they had a strategy in place for measuring and combating information risk – even as the average number of data breaches increase by 50 percent each year.

Of those asked, over half were so overwhelmed by the threat of data breaches that they acknowledge they’ll never be able to keep up, while 41 percent said data loss is an “inevitable part of daily business”.

Evaluating 600 European SMEs with between 250 and 2,500 employees, across the legal, financial, pharma, insurance, manufacturing and engineering sectors, there was some improvement compared to last year in understanding information risk. Using a set of metrics based on the amount of data protection in place, it rates companies at a target score of 100. This year European companies scored an average of 56.8 compared to 40.6 last year, but clearly there is a long way to go.

PwC Risk partner Claire Reid said that businesses will have to embrance a “new way of thinking” – where data security will be a top priority and also a way to create value.

Overseas online sales to soar to £28bn

Posted on May 2, 2013 by - News, Opinions

poundsAccording to  research from OC&C Strategy Consultants and Google, British retailers could see their overseas online sales soar to £28 billion by the end of the decade.

Researchers concluded that growth in online sales will outpace domestic growth and eventually account for 40 percent of total online sales by 2020.

British retailers are already doing quite well abroad. In fact, international consumers spent £7.4 billion on British online retail sites last year, making up about 14 percent of total online sales. This year British retailers are expected to net £10 billion from cross-border sales.

OC&C Strategy Consultants and Google found that growth will come from multiple regions, with western Europea leading the way. Sales in western Europe are expected to hit £9.8 billion by 2020, up from £1.5 billion last year. Central and Eastern Europe will see plenty of growth as well, with sales reaching £6.9 billion by the end of the decade, up from £400 million last year.

Sales in Asia are expected to hit £4.5 billion by 2020, while North America will lose its position as the top market for British online retailers. The North American market is currently estimated at £800 million and it is set to expand to £2.7 billion in 2020. The American market is simply more mature than the rest of the world, which translates into slower growth.

“We have seen a significant increase in the volume of searches for British retailers and brands coming from overseas,” Peter Fitzgerald, director at Google, said. “The majority of non-UK searches are currently coming from Europe, followed by North America and Asia, driven by the increased popularity of British brands abroad. Retailers can use search data to identify pockets of demand and move quickly to meet the needs of customers.”

Anita Balchandani, partner at OC&C, said e-commerce has already transformed the retail game, which was once anchored in local markets.

“There are a number of reasons why growth in e-commerce is changing the rules of internationalisation. Firstly, geographical proximity no longer determines which market is best suited for expansion – the internet allows customers seek out the best offers from around the world,” she said. “Secondly, the nature of risk has changed. International expansion is much less capital intensive and this is creating growth opportunities which have a more controlled exposure to risk. Thirdly, the speed with which companies expand has also accelerated – over 40 of Britain’s top-100 etailers serve customers in more than 40 countries.”

Economic turmoil wreaks supply chain havoc

Posted on April 17, 2013 by - News

supply-chain-managementThe never ending economic crisis was to blame for more supply chain disruptions last year than insolvencies and horrible weather. According to a survey by Dynamic Markets, commissioned by Oracle, more than half of major companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) suffered supply chain disruptions caused by economic woes.

Hard drive market shrinks, again

Posted on April 3, 2013 by - News, Opinions

hdd-hugeEuropean outfits don’t seem to be gobbling up nearly as many hard drives as they should. According to consultancy firm Futuresource, shipments have gone from bad to worse over the past two years.

The total capacity purchased last year dropped year-on-year for the first time in history and there are no signs of recovery yet.

A multitude of factors contributed to the slump. The disastrous Thailand floods in 2011 pushed prices up for several consecutive quarters, and just as supply started to improve, the tablet craze and PC slump hit hard, compounded by the ever increasing popularity of cloud services. The fact that SSD prices are tumbling did not help, either. Hard drive shipments peaked in 2010, with 28.1 million units, but they dropped to 25.9 million in 2011 and 21.5 million in 2012.

Mats Larsson, senior market analyst for Futuresource, told The Guardian that he doesn’t expect the market to recover to 2010 levels anytime soon.

“We think this year shipments will show between 5% to 10% growth – likely about 7%,” Larsson said. So although some growth is expected, it’s not nearly enough to come close to 2010 levels.

The other issue is the size of drives purchased last year. While it is still growing, it is not keeping up with the drop in unit sales. As a result, the total capacity dropped from 25.4 petabytes in 2011 to 23.6 petabytes in 2012.

Larsson said some retailers held back on buying drives last year, in the hope that distributors would drop prices. That didn’t happen. Hopes that increased demand for tablets would result in higher NAS shipments were also quashed. Shipments of NAS systems in 2012 dropped to 1.12 million units, down from 1.27 million units in 2011.

IT services market was poor last year

Posted on March 18, 2013 by - News

rubbish-tip1Beancounters at Ovum have officially ruled 2012 as bad for the IT services market.

Ed Thomas, Senior Analyst in the Ovum IT Services team said that 2012 was the worst for IT services contract activity since 2002.

He wrote that performance in the three months to the end of December 2012 fell well below the levels seen in the same period of 2011. This makes IT services contract activity the lowest than it has been for more than a decade.

In Ovum’s latest analysis, deals in the IT services market was only $20.8 billion, down 34 per cent on the same period of the previous year.

The number of deals fell 17 per cent in the same period and there was a notable lack of big deals. While the fourth quarter was slightly better than the beginning of the year, that really does not make things better across the year.

Thomas blamed the ongoing economic uncertainty afflicting key markets for IT services such as the US and Europe as a major factor behind the weak performance of the industry in 2012.

His research suggests that many enterprises remain wary of committing to major projects, with issues such as the Eurozone crisis having a particularly significant impact.

In addition, public sector activity has reduced as many governments come under pressure to cut public spending in the face of high debt levels, Thomas said.

Enterprises were just as bad, where the number of deals announced fell by 50 per cent. In healthcare contract volumes were down 39 percent and in the financial services market they fell 18 percent. The only industries in which contract activity was up on the previous year were telecommunications and technology sectors.

Europe was the leading market for private sector contract activity in 2012 but the number of contracts generated by European enterprises actually declined sharply during the year, falling 31 percent to $16.7 billion.

Private sector contracts in America slumped dramatically in 2011, rebounded in 2012, finishing the year up 48 percent at $10.5 billion.

This was mostly boosted by a couple of big contracts from Procter & Gamble and it is too early to tell whether or not this represents a significant shift in approach by enterprises in the region, Thomas said.