Arrow and Insight see sales drop as macroeconomic concerns persist

Arrow and Insight have both pointed to macroeconomic pressures as they reported slow sales in their latest financial results.

Arrow saw its sales drop four percent to $4.96 billion in the third quarter, down from $5.19 billion at the same point last year. Sales for Arrow’s component business were down by eight percent to $3.37 billion, including a four percent drop in Europe.

The company’s enterprise computing solutions (ECS) division saw an increase in sales, growing three percent to $1.59 billion during the third quarter.

ECS has been steadily growing for some time now,  notching an eleventh consecutive quarterly increase despite software and services growth being offset by limp sales of servers worldwide.

The firm is confident that there is further growth to be had this year, with fourth quarter sales expected to be between $5.1 and $5.5 billion.

Despite the overall declining sales, Arrow boss Michael J. Long said the distributor had performed well in what is continuing to be a harsh economic climate.

“The third quarter again demonstrated our strong execution in what continues to be a challenging global macroeconomic environment,” Long said, adding that sales were roughly in line with expectations.

“Our fundamentals are strong and we continue to focus on operating the business for the long-term health of Arrow.”

Insight also blamed a tough economic environment for slower than usual sales.  Third quarter results showed a five percent decrease in worldwide sales to $1.2 billion.  This was due to hardware sales dropping six percent, software by one percent, and services revenues falling by 10 percent.

Within EMEA sales were also down, dropping four percent to $276.6 million during the quarter.

Ken Lamneck, President and Chief Executive Officer commented: “During the third quarter, softer macro-economic conditions continued to dampen our top line results, but we focused on the profitability of our business and continued to control costs.”