Electrocomponents unveils strong sales growth

Electrocomponents, the UK's largest distributor of electronic parts, which joined the FTSE 100 in September, unveiled strong first-half results yesterday and highlighted the Far East as a market for future growth. The group said turnover for the six months to 30 September rose by nearly a fifth to £415m, although profits increased just 2.1 per cent on a like-for-like basis to £53.5m, held back investments in e-commerce and in China. The shares closed down 11p at 733p.

Electrocomponents, the UK's largest distributor of electronic parts, which joined the FTSE 100 in September, unveiled strong first-half results yesterday and highlighted the Far East as a market for future growth. The group said turnover for the six months to 30 September rose by nearly a fifth to £415m, although profits increased just 2.1 per cent on a like-for-like basis to £53.5m, held back investments in e-commerce and in China. The shares closed down 11p at 733p.

The group was founded in 1937 in a garage by two Hungarian Jewish émigrés and has outperformed its sector by 6 per cent this year.

The finance director Jeff Hewitt said operations in Japan had been launched last March and added: "The market is potentially huge and what we do doesn't yet exist there." Analysts estimated that market to be five times the size of the UK's. Electrocomponents specialises in supplying small orders with an average bill of £80, and takes 20,000 calls a day in Britain.

However, revenues for the UK fell from 60 per cent to 50 per cent of the total and September's petrol crisis cost the group £1m in lost sales.