Sales and market conditions push up Premier Farnell Q1 profit

Sales grew strongly and the company benefited from being well prepared for the economic recovery.

The Leeds-based company, which sells items ranging from batteries to microchips, posted underlying pre-tax profit in the three months ended April of 22m compared to 13m in the same period last year.

Premier Farnell said the focus on its electronic design engineering sector helped to drive growth, while sales in China, India and Eastern Europe were up by 113 per cent, 74 per cent and 75.6 per cent respectively.

"The very positive momentum in sales growth that we have seen in the first quarter has accelerated in all of our distribution businesses in May, with group sales growing 30 percent year on year," said chief executive Harriet Green.

Shares in the company closed at 219.6 pence on Wednesday, valuing the company at 792.3m.