In the third quarter (ended 1st November 2009) the distributor Premier Farnell achieved total sales of 199.8 million GBP. This was a drop of 11% compared with the same quarter of the previous year. Total sales increased by 9.8% in America and 10.2% in the Asia-Pacific area but fell by 6.9% in Mainland Europe and 5.8% in the UK. Profit before tax was 11.1 million GBP compared with 17.7 million GBP in the same period of the previous year.