As its India business saw a double-digit growth in revenue in December quarter on the back of IT segment continuing its growth momentum, Chennai-based Redington — the distribution and supply chain giant for international brands — has reaped rich dividends from the mobility vertical overseas since it has a portfolio of brands, against one or two brands in the country.
During the post-earnings conference call, Redington (India) managing director Raj Shankar told analysts recently that the mobility vertical for the company in India was largely to do with one or two brands, whereas the same business outside India had a portfolio of very enviable brands.
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“Africa, part of the overseas business, tends to be a little more consistent and stable. It is the West Asia where we have recently acquired some contracts on the mobility space that have given us this accelerated growth. So, fundamentally, the difference is bigger portfolio outside India and a recent brand acquisition in West Asia which has really given us this high growth. In India, we continue to be largely dependent on one or two brands,” he said.
According to Raj Shankar, the overseas business did well in FY18 and FY17, too. “But, FY19 has been particularly good, purely because we had some very good brand acquisitions or existing brands that we managed to get into new geographies. So, that has definitely given us a boost,”
Redington is in over 30 markets such as India, West Asia, Turkey, Africa and South Asian regions including Singapore.
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On markets outside India, he said the good part of the overseas is, it is a very balanced picture. The firm had got IT consumer continuing to do well as the IT enterprise segment had been growing double-digit for the past many quarters. The mobility business is growing double-digit, largely through brand acquisition, or existing brands for new geographies.
“So,overall, it has been a good growth story. We expect the business will continue to deliver a good set of numbers. I would like to believe that we continue to have a very strong leadership position in West Asia and Africa for all brands and products both in mobility and IT,” he said. However, he said in a bid to widen its mobility brands in India, the firm was in talks with a slew of firms. “We are currently in discussion with a couple of vendors. They are at different stages of consummation. But, we are certainly trying to expand our brand portfolio in the mobility space in India.” Redington is popular as the one of the iPhone distributors in India.
In India, the IT vertical has had a double-digit growth of 17% for the quarter and it has also grown 12% in nine months.
“When you look from a mobility perspective at a consolidated level, we grew 12% but this was essentially coming out of a strong double-digit growth in overseas of 21%,” he said.