Redington India registered a 32% growth in turnover over the last year to become the number one distributor in the country. Considering the base and size, Redington's growth is no mean task and worth mentioning, as the company seems to be gearing up to face the competition from the new Ingram Micro-which acquired and merged Tech Pacific recently to become the largest IT distributor in the country.

Redington sent out a clear message with its performance last year that in the coming days, the distribution business in India will be a clear battle only between the two top players. This Chennai-based company posted a strong growth in 2004-05, thanks to its new initiatives in value business started in the previous fiscal, which paid rich dividends. The company grew only by 16% in 2003-04.

Growth came from almost all product lines in the last year, except mobile, cutting across different business divisions. The new products lines also helped for growth and the company did considerably well with Zenith PCs, Acer consumer desktops and laptops and BenQ notebooks, among others. It also added new products like HP Indigo high-end printers, Xerox print and copier solutions and Philips monitors.

The company did well in the systems and peripherals, showing good growth, while demonstrating its ability to manage both MNC and Indian products with ease. However, it needs to increase its focus on networking products, where there is more scope for the player.

Redington meanwhile lost its mobile revenues (Motorola distributor), from Rs 220 crore in FY 2003-04 to just Rs 84 crore in 2004-05. This came as a dampener in the company's overall revenue and performance. It attributes this loss in mobile business due to shift in buyers' trend towards Nokia.

Another major development at Redington over the last year was Synnex's investment in the company. Synnex, the Taiwan-based company with a global revenue of $10 billion, had invested $24 million in Redington. The infuse of new funds helped Redington strengthen its operations in the country, besides beefing up its logistics management through Synnex relationship.

Meanwhile, Synnex-the third largest global distributor of IT products with significant presence in Australia, Hong Kong and China, was able to gain foothold in the Middle East and Indian markets, with Redington relationship. Synnex is also trying to push its own products-such as PCs and IT peripherals, through Redington.

The disty also restructured its business through this investment, by becoming the holding company for Redington Middle East and Singapore.

Redington increased its workforce by 100 and added close to 1,150 dealers and four branches.

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