Scottish refurbished kit specialist ETB Technologies has reached a turnover milestone and indicated it has plans to expand deeper into Europe.
The firm has revealed it is on target to break through the £15m turnover barrier, just a couple of years after it hit £10m, and has increased staffing levels by 50% since last year.
ETB, which refurbishes servers, storage and networking kit from Dell, Cisco, HP and Juniper, is working on a five-year plan that includes more growth and a determination to use recently opened sites in Bellshill and Sheffield to connect with local talent pools as well as increasing its customer numbers in the UK.
International growth is one of the main ways the firm will see turnover momentum continue and, as it marks its 20th anniversary, it has revealed that the plan is to increase market share in Europe. As things stand, half of its revenues come from overseas activities, with 40% of sales going to EU countries and 10% to the US.
“From our humble beginnings 20 years ago, ETB Technologies has become a force to be reckoned with, now distributing our refurbished enterprise IT equipment to more than 75 countries,” said Nick Stapleton, managing director of ETB Technologies.
He added that it also had to thank its wider ecosystem for getting the business to this point. “The future potential of the refurbished enterprise IT sector is considerable,” he said. “The relationships we have cultivated since launching in 2001 – either through the customers, vendors, suppliers or partners we work with – have enabled us to flourish.”
“From our humble beginnings 20 years ago, ETB Technologies has become a force to be reckoned with, now distributing our refurbished enterprise IT equipment to more than 75 countries”
Nick Stapleton, ETB Technologies
That faith in the prospects for the refurbished market echoes views across the industry, with increased focus on sustainability and component shortages encouraging more of a drive to use refurbished hardware.
Stone Group carried out research that charted increasing levels of interest in buying refurbished kit. The firm shared findings back in March that showed 59% of organisations currently purchase refurbished hardware and a quarter purchase refurbished IT equipment where possible.
It found there were several reasons for the choice of refurbished, with environmental responsibility and value for money at the top of the list.
“With 53.6 million metric tonnes of global e-waste generated in 2019 alone, we need to urgently reconsider how we think about, purchase and dispose of our IT,” said Tim Westbrook, director at Stone Group, back in March.
Elsewhere, KD Market Insights indicated that the global PC and laptop market would deliver a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4% between 2020 and 2025. The firm also estimated the global market opportunity was worth in the region of $4,247.6m over the same period.
The market watchers added that increased prices had also had an impact on buying decisions and made customers, from enterprises to educational institutions, willing to choose refurbished kit rather than pay higher prices for new.
