Farnell grows 11%

Premier Farnell saw sales grow 11.1% y-o-y in its 2018 financial year with revenue of $1.5 billion. Q4 sales were up 13% y-o-y.

“This is a significant result,” says Farnell president Chris Breslin (pictured), “we have built real momentum, delivering growth every quarter, in every region, and 13% year over year growth globally during the fourth quarter. The significant investment we have made in the business during this year – both in inventory and the development of new relationships with supplier partners, has supported this result. The ongoing take-up of the BBC Micro:bit as an education tool has also continued and we have supported new programmes in Canada and Croatia.”

Farnell invested $100 million in additional inventory during the year and added 22 new suppliers, adding depth and breadth of product offering and providing customers with even greater access to the latest new product introductions and established product offerings.

Most recent suppliers added to the supplier network include IDEC and Klein Tools, building on the addition of Xilinx, Nordic Semiconductor and Arduino earlier in the year.

During the year, the company also announced a major investment in new warehousing capabilities in Leeds, United Kingdom, which will be the largest ever warehouse development in the Leeds City region.

The distribution centre is scheduled to be fully operational by late 2019/early 2020, when it will supply the company’s network of eight other warehouses across the globe including Gaffney in North America.

This state-of-the-art new facility will enable the business to develop core value-adding services for customers right from its warehouse operations.

Source from:electronicsweekly