Sales boom in Asia Pacific but drop in Americas for Farnell

In its interim management statement, it said that group sales per day grew 2 per cent year on year and 2.2 per cent excluding sales of Raspberry Pi, the educational coding computer.

Sales rose year on year in Europe by 0.8 per cent and in the Asia Pacific by 20.5 per cent, but dipped by 0.5 per cent in the Americas, where the bad winter adversely affected the economy as a whole.

The multi-national, whose headquarters are in Leeds, said it continued to extend its model at the front end of the electronics design cycle and enhance its technical capability following its acquisition in April of Ohio-based AVID Technologies for $13m.

Sales of development kits and tools were up 19 per cent year on year and the company had also signed a significant new agreement with Cypress Semiconductor.

Sales at component distribution arm CPC were expected to grow over the rest of the year following its launch of a new catalogue of 30,000 new products.

Laurence Bain, group CEO, said: “The year has begun positively as the group benefited from our investments and the gradual improvement in our markets.

“At the full year results, we outlined that we are investing in our strategy whilst optimising our business in line with market conditions. We continue to expect a year of further progress in achieving our strategic goals with our full year expectations remaining unchanged.”