Ingram Micro mobile sales surge

IT distributor Ingram Micro has more than trebled its mobile customer base in the last six months.

It said last week it wants to increase mobile sales to comprise a significant chunk of overall UK revenues.

Ingram Micro, the world’s largest IT distributor, reported turnover of $8.2 billion (£5.4bn) across all its operations for the three months to September 27. Net profit was $46.4 million. Sales for its EMEA operation were $2.9 billion.

No breakdown for the UK was available.

In the UK, Ingram Micro distributes Vodafone airtime via consumer and business resellers. It also sells T-Mobile airtime contracts and prepay USB broadband dongles.

Its headline customer accounts include Amazon, Carphone Wareouse Phones 4U, Tesco, Dixons Stores Group, as well as network retail shops and a roster of independent resellers. It claims to have a reseller base of 10,000 across IT and mobile selling over 20,000 IT and mobile products.

“Uptake of [mobile] business is really good. Our account base has  gone from strength-to-strength in the last six months. It is growing fast,” said Ingram Micro commercial director Bhavesh Patel.

“T-Mobile’s prepay mobile broadband is a great offer and we’ve got about 300 customers buying it.”

Patel said Ingram Micro’s  UK mobile division remains a small part of its total business. However, he said Ingram Micro is looking to bolster its team to cover new mobile business, as  the IT and mobile markets blur and wireless convergence business grows.

“We’re looking to expand our mobility team by putting extra sales heads and scaling out our general business.

“It used to be quite a specialist area for us with a specialist team, but now it’s integrated with the day-to-day business.”