Who are the UK’s ‘Must-Know’ distributors, and what kind of year have they had?
IT Channel Oxygen has had a stab at answering this for a second year running, and this time we have included even more players.
Our free members can discover who was crowned as the UK’s largest distributor, and who made the wider top 50, here.
In partnership with ResourceiT, we’re also bringing you access to exclusive insights into what resellers and MSPs REALLY want from their distributors in 2025. The research, conducted across 30 UK resellers, reveals several critical insights that will help distributors better align their strategies with reseller needs as they head into 2025. (brief registration process required).
Our half century of wholesalers generated collective sales of £14.7bn in their latest years.
Many have seen sales fall back during what has been a tough period, with the term ‘distributor’ itself increasingly being discarded by some of the outfits in this feature, however.
The famous 50
Rather than just copying and pasting last year’s rundown, we scoured the market for new specialists to showcase.
All 50 who made the cut provide all the products, solutions and services you might find in the average VAR or MSP’s kitbag*.
They are a mix of broadline goliaths, and specialists in areas such as software, cybersecurity, networking, storage, components, print and AV.
Some 17 turn over more than £100m, with five boasting (UK) sales of above £1bn.
In our rundown, we round up where they fit into the market and their recent fortunes.
In the majority of cases (44 out of 50, to be precise), we also caught up with their senior management to get their views on the market (as well as posing more playful questions, such as which peer they’d choose to spy on, fly-on-the-wall style).
Revenue rollback
Our famous 50 are the cement that binds the UK IT channel together.
But the tech downturn that began in 2022 bit hard on this tier of the channel last year and into 2024, as their latest numbers attest.
Collective revenues among our half century (or the 45 on whom we could locate two years of sales data) slipped 2.4% to £14.7bn, with the ‘Big Four’ all recording a high single-digit/low double-digit fall.
Some specialists have continued to enjoy decent growth, however.
20th– and 33rd-ranked cybersecurity VADs Kite and Ignition saw revenues advance a respective 48% and 31% in their latest years, with Giacom and Climb among the software-focused outfits reporting double-digit growth.
But even the hardware-focused distributors have reported green shoots as 2024 progressed, with the world’s largest broadliner – TD Synnex – returning to top-line growth in its latest quarter on a global basis.
“[Market watcher] Context has been predicting [growth] will steadily return this year. Our experience to date is in line with that,” TD Synnex UK&I MD Dave Watts told us (see here).
Is distribution now a dirty word?
On top of stalled growth, the distribution market is also experiencing something of an identity crisis amid the continued rise of cloud marketplaces.
In October, Canalys branded AWS Marketplace “one of the biggest distributors in EMEA and globally”.
The analyst expects sales of third-party software (from the likes of CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Snowflake and Splunk) through hyperscaler marketplaces to rocket to $85bn by 2028, up from $16bn in 2023.
Over the last decade, the disties themselves have been developing their own cloud marketplace capabilities (with Northamber set to become the latest to enter the fray, its Executive Chairman Alex Phillips told us).
But the hefty investment needed to develop the requisite tools and systems that accompany this brave new era was one factor behind Westcoast’s decision to sell up to mainland European peer ALSO in July, Canalys Founder Steve Brazier told IT Channel Oxygen.
Indeed, 95% of distributors will struggle to secure funding to participate in the AI era, Canalys Chief Analyst Jay McBain asserted last month (see here).
Against this backdrop, some firms who operate in the distribution layer – most prominently Pax8 – are keener than ever to distance themselves from the term ‘distributor’ itself.
One smaller player even declined to feature in this report, lest they get tarred with the distributor brush (they now style themselves as a “Channel Enabler”).
It is perhaps telling that Ingram Micro characterised itself as a “solutions provider” in its recent IPO document, with even the world’s largest distributor – TD Synnex – now calling itself a “global distributor and solutions aggregator” in its PR blurb.
And then there is the question of whether hyperscaler cloud marketplaces are competitors or a potential new source of income.
We asked all our distribution bosses whether they agreed that AWS Marketplace should be regarded a distributor.
Most agreed it should, although some are working hard to build programmes to help their partners access this new route to market more easily.
“To me, although many don’t like it, a marketplace is a distributor – just part of the new world that we find ourselves in,” Angus Shaw, Sales Director at 38th-ranked Brigantia, responded to the question (see here).
“Does a distributor, in time, have to be a marketplace? That is the question.”
Matt Sanderson, SVP & MD UK & Ireland at Ingram Micro, wasn’t so sure, stating that “AWS Marketplace is a procurement method, whereas distribution brings together incremental elements” (see here), while 25th-ranked Distology CEO Hayley Roberts branded AWS Markplace distribution “in its crudest form” (see here)
Is distribution ditching the doldrums?
Despite such challenges, a sense of optimism prevailed among the 50 distributors profiled, with many predicting growth next year.
“2025 should see another growth spurt,” Hugh Garrod, CEO of 27th-ranked Purdicom said (see here).
“We anticipate the UK distribution market will stabilise in early to mid-2025,” John Hayes-Warren, CEO of 22nd-ranked Intec Microsystems, agreed (see here).
The general election and budget has “removed some market uncertainty”, Sunil Bouri, UK MD of 29th-ranked EET added, meanwhile (see here).
We also asked our distributors which peer they’d effectively like to spy on (in either the capacity of a fly on the wall, or an undercover apprentice), and over 20 were game enough to answer.
It is perhaps telling that, outside of Westcoast, the peer named as many times as anyone else was….. AWS Marketplace…
Should AWS be in it next year?
In any case, with the likes of Spire, Varlink, Pragma, Inty and DataSolutions – not to mention Westcoast – all selling up since the 2023 addition of this feature (and Exertis potentially set to be put up for sale by parent DCC in the near future), the UK distribution skyline has not seen such dramatic change for years.
We hope you enjoy reading the profiles as much as we enjoyed compiling them.
*We generally eschewed those with a focus on IT-adjacent technology and products such as those whose main business is office products, industrial components or mobile phones.
Tier-one vendor relationships was another pre-requisite, meaning brokers, sub-distributors and second-user players don’t feature in this list.
A UK total was isolated for the very biggest. For some smaller ones, Irish or overseas sales are included in the totals listed. Where possible, we favoured gross invoiced sales over ‘netted down’ tallies.
We sought to feature every major IT distributor with revenues of over £20m, whether management helped us with the profile or not. For smaller distributors, we were often reliant on assistance from management, meaning that several disties on our radar sadly don’t feature in the rundown. We will, of course, endeavour to add any that we missed next time around.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
