Dicker Data posts $15.7M profit in first half

David Dicker (Dicker Data)

Dicker Data has closed the first half of the 2018 financial year with net profit after tax (NPAT) of $15.7 million, a 21.9 per cent increase compared to the previous corresponding period.

"The six months to June 2018 has seen Dicker Data grow revenue at a rate of 13.5% through growth in both established vendors and new vendors," said David Dicker, CEO and chairman of Dicker Data, when speaking to shareholders on 27 August.

Revenue for the six months to 30 June 2018 was $717.6 million, up by $85.1 million or 13.5 per cent on the previous period.

From a channel perspective, the publicly-listed distributor welcomed 18 new vendors during the past 12 months including Citrix, Commvault, NBN Co and Kyocera - collectively these contributed an increase of $35.8 million to revenue on a year-on-year basis during the first half of 2018.

Meanwhile, revenue for existing vendors has grown $48.8 million, an increase of 7.9 per cent on the previous corresponding period.

"At a country level Australia grew $109.2 million and New Zealand contracted $24.7 million as the NZ operation ceased distribution of Cisco product," Dicker explained. "With the exit of Cisco in New Zealand we have reset our strategy to focus on growth in New Zealand with new vendor partners.

"Since the Cisco exit we have onboarded several new vendors including HPE, Seagate, APC and HDS. If we exclude the contraction of the Cisco revenue, overall growth in New Zealand was $2.0 million."

Specific to technology, hardware saw a 14 per cent increase, software 11 per cent and services 3.5 per cent - of the total group revenue, $184.7 million was from recurring subscription revenue.

"We have seen increasing demand across four key pillars: hybrid IT, IoT, digital transformation and wireless technology," Dicker added.

"The demand for as-a-service offerings is driven by more partners transitioning their business models from transactional based sales to annuity based revenue streams, as their customers seek Opex based solutions instead of CAPEX commitments.

"Having said this, we have also seen strong growth for both on-premise and consumption-based offerings in H118."

According to Dicker, the distributor is now playing a "pivotal role" as the aggregator, bringing together the right technologies available in the market today, while delivering "robust solutions for our customers" across emerging and fast growing markets.

"Dicker Data’s commitment is to invest in our technical capabilities and cloud platform to ensure our partners have the right support and technical advice to deliver appropriate solutions to their customers in a seamless and efficient way," Dicker added.

"In summary our H218 outlook is positive, as we continue to play to our strengths and drive strong profitable revenue across the key pillars outlined above.

"Based on results to date and execution of above initiatives Dicker Data expects to achieve its previous guidance of $42.5 million in pre-tax operating profit for FY18."

Dicker Data currently employs 420 staff, an eight per cent increase from the previous 389 as a result of new vendor additions.