Channel partner growth sentiment continues to fall amid a “volatile” transition away from traditional resale, a leading analyst has claimed.
According to the latest data from Omdia, some 81% of global channel partners expect to grow less than the overall industry growth rate of 10.2% this year.
Unveiling the numbers on LinkedIn, Omdia Chief Analyst Jay McBain pinned the blame on the “messy middle” – namely the “volatile transition from legacy, linear resale to non-linear, consumption-based orchestration”.
“As we enter the third year of the 20-year AI-era (or second half of the decade of the ecosystem), we’ve hit a jarring structural inflection point in partnering,” McBain wrote (see below).
Omdia’s latest data, which reflects the views of 25,000 partners globally, reveals a “reset” in sentiment, according to McBain.
The percentage of partners expecting double-digit growth has sunk 16 points in one year, while those bracing for a double-digit revenue fall has surged 27 points.
“Little need for traditional resell”
The fastest-growing technologies and tech business models are all largely bypassing the traditional channel, McBain warned.
The growing AI ecosystem has “very little need for traditional resell”, while spending via direct-leaning hyperscaler marketplaces is set to grow “rapidly” to $163bn by 2030, he pointed out.
“Over 400 vendors have moved into ‘points systems’ that change the economics from the point-of-sale to the hyper-specialised outcomes and agentic AI services that ‘surround’ the customer,” McBain added.
Omdia’s data is based on a series of its Candefero polls over four time periods.
“It likely reflects other industries too and the general feeling of malaise around the world,” McBain told IT Channel Oxygen.
The news comes after IT Channel Oxygen latest Oxygen 250 2026 report revealed another deceleration in UK channel partner growth.
Growth among the top 250 UK VARs, MSPs and consultancies on our radar slowed to 7% in their latest years, compared with the 12.8% and 17.6% growth achieved by their counterparts in the two previous editions.
The real story of the report was one of adaptation however, with many evaluating what they do, and who they serve.
Although there is over “a trillion dollars” of hardware that needs to be shipped, the era of the reseller business model outgrowing the market could be over, McBain counselled.
“Services multipliers become the ONLY way forward for partner growth,” he concluded.
