Exclusive Networks shares first numbers post-IPO

Excusive Networks has shared its first financial numbers since going public, with investors who backed the recent IPO being rewarded with signs of growth.

The distributor revealed that in its third quarter, gross sales were up by 21.9% to €804.9m with revenues of €578.4m compared to the same period in 2020, accelerating the trend recorded in the first half of the year.

In the EMEA region, gross sales climbed by 22.3% to €608.3m, compared to the same period last year and the firm reported positive growth in the enterprise sector. Elsewhere, it saw sales improve by 21.2% in APAC and 20.1% in the American region.

Jesper Trolle, CEO of Exclusive Networks, said the first results since the September IPO showed the business was taking the right approach.

“This third-quarter performance is testimony to the relevance of the strategy in place,” he said. “Our competitive positioning through our highly curated portfolio of leading cyber security vendors proves our capacity to address the growing demand.

“During the quarter, we have continued to increase our partner base, expanded into new countries with our existing vendors and onboarded new, promising vendors to our platform, while maintaining a healthy pipeline for the upcoming quarters.”

In the last couple of weeks, the channel player has extended relationships with Juniper Networks and F5 Networks and made them global partnerships as it looks to promote its position as a worldwide player.

That strategy of working more closely with existing vendors could be seen in the breakdown of business activity, with 70% of the growth coming from existing vendors, 14% from vendor expansion to new geographies, 2% from new vendors and 14% from the contribution from acquisitions.

The firm has also been consistent in using acquisition to expand its expertise and geographical coverage and Trolle said that there would be further activity on that front.

“On the M&A front, we acquired Ignition in July, which will help us establish a dedicated proposition for emerging vendors, and we are currently in exclusive discussions with Networks Unlimited, which would expand our footprint into sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

The trading update also included a nod to the X-OD (Exclusive-On-Demand) platform that was launched in August to provide more consumption options for customers. There was also an acceptance that the component shortage affecting the entire industry “impacted only the availability of few products in few regions”.

“We now focus our efforts on the last quarter of the year, for which we remain confident to achieve the targets announced,” Trolle added.