Synnex Earnings Up Despite Vista Lag

Strong sales in VoIP systems and enterprise storage helped the distributor see higher revenues, said John Paget, president of Synnex's Technology Solutions Division.

On PC purchases, "It appears that people are waiting a bit," Paget said. "Let's call it the Vista stall or whatever you want to call it. I think people are waiting to see the impact of it. We've seen kind of this hiatus. People are waiting to see what the final impact will be."

Synnex is hoping to see VoIP and storage boom again in 2007 along with its PrintSolv managed service. About 80 resellers have gone through training to sell PrintSolv, and Paget said he hopes to triple the number in the coming year. Synnex also is looking to its consumer electronics business to build revenue next year, bringing the distributor new customers in both the retail and home integration markets.

For the quarter, sales hit $1.74 billion, a 9.1 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago. Distribution revenues were $1.59 billion for the quarter, an increase of 8.7 percent over the year-ago quarter. Contract assembly revenues increased 13.8 percent over the prior year quarter to $144.6 million.

For the current quarter, Synnex expects earnings of $12.8 million to $13.5 million, or 39 to 41 cents per share, on revenues of $1.57 billion to $1.62 billion.