Softcat has hoisted its annual profit growth expectations for a second time on the back of strong demand for AI-enabled infrastructure.
The LSE-listed reseller this morning confirmed it now expects underlying operating profit growth for its financial year ending 31 July 2026 to hit “mid-teens”.
Originally, Softcat was banking on “low single-digit” profit growth for the year.
Buoyed by its performance in the six-month period ending 31 January 2026, Softcat in March then upped this prediction to “high single-digits”.
Growth remains “broad-based”, with particular strength in corporate, Softcat said this morning in a trading update for its Q3 ended 30 April.
Optimism among channel partners is rebounding as customers rush to pay inflated prices for tech roll outs before shortages bite, Omdia research found.
That picture was backed up by Softcat, which said it “continued to perform well” amid “customer demand for AI-enabled infrastructure and continued pull forward of some orders due to memory shortages”.
Getting profits purring
Softcat’s underlying operating profit grew 27.3% to £93.8m in its fiscal first half, as its top line broke the £2bn mark.
If that makes Softcat’s full-year operating profit growth target seem a tad modest, that’s because the Marlow-based giant is lapping some “big deals” done in the second half of its fiscal 2025, CEO Graham Charlton told us in March.
“I think we get accused of [being cautious] every set of results,” he said at the time.
“In our industry, and in what we do, there’s never a huge degree of certainty. And right now, there’s some more uncertainty being dialled back into the macro.”
In Softcat’s trading update this morning, Charlton said:
“We have continued to see strong customer demand, with the impact of AI on technology driving investment and innovation across all elements of IT infrastructure.
“Our uniquely broad offering brings together specialisms from the datacentre to the edge, through the network, security, data and automation layers, and across hardware, software and services, spanning the design, implementation, management, support and optimisation of new solutions.”
The news immediately pushed Softcat’s market value to a seven-month high of £3.16bn, mirroring recent gains at more international-focused, LSE-listed peer Computacenter.
