In the third quarter 2011/2012 the distributor Premier Farnell achieved total sales of 241.8 million GBP. This was a drop of 3.5% compared with the same quarter of the previous year. Profit before tax was 19.4 million GBP compared with 23.6 million GBP in the same period of the previous year.

Operating profit for the first nine months of the year up by 2.9% on last year with continued improvement in return on sales in MDD North America at 8.5% in the third quarter, up from 8.0% on the third quarter last year and from the 4.0% achieved in the third quarter two years ago.

In the quarter the UK performed well, with growth of 4.2%. Europe as a whole grew 0.6% year on year in the quarter – impacted by the sentiment that has now seen Eurozone PMIs below 50 and declining for 7 consecutive months.

In light of very strong growth of 31.0% in Q3 of last year sales across Asia Pacific experienced a slowdown of 3.6% year on year, as technology and industrial growth across the region weakened. Singapore and Malaysia absolute sales per day were flat through the quarter.