(Alliance News) - Electrocomponents PLC on Friday said its financial performance so far this year was "stronger than expected", despite cost pressures.
Electrocomponents is a London-based company that supplies over 650,000 stocked and 3 million unstocked industrial and electronic products, working with over 2,500 suppliers. Its customers are designers, builders and maintainers of industrial equipment and operations.
The FTSE 250 stock was up 1.0% at 1,086.00 pence in London on Friday morning.
In the six months to September 30, like-for-like revenue jumped 31% on a year ago, and was 22% higher compared with two years prior.
Americas operation saw like-for-like revenue climb the most, hitting 37% growth on a year ago and 27% on two years ago.
Asia Pacific business grew 31% on a year ago, while Europe, the Middle East and Africa trailed slightly behind at 29%.
Electrocomponents didn't provide any actual revenue figures, only percentage changes.
"Our trading has remained very strong across all regions as we have worked closely with suppliers to ensure our product availability, delivery and service offer remain robust, which has driven further growth in both customers and average order value," said Chief Executive Lindsley Ruth.
"This has led to our financial performance to date being stronger than expected."
Electrocomponents raised its full-year guidance as a result of its first-half performance, though noted supply chain issues are set to persist.
The company warned it has continued to see higher outbound freight charges and labour inflation, which are "showing no signs of abating".
"Looking forward, we face much tougher comparatives and a number of external challenges, including supply chain shortages, which are affecting industrial production and increasing cost pressures," it added. "Hence, we expect our full year profit to be more weighted to the first half than in previous years."
Electrocomponents now expects full-year revenue growth and adjusted operating profit margin to be slightly ahead of previous guidance. Back in July, the firm guided to low double-digit to mid-teens like-for-like revenue growth for the financial year ending March 31, 2022.
It made revenue of GBP2.00 billion in 2021, with like-for-like revenue growth of 1.4%. Its adjusted operating profit margin was 9.4%.
By Josie O'Brien; josieobrien@alliancenews.com
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