U.S. B2B technology channel revenue grew 4% year over year during the third quarter, according to The NPD Group’s B2B Distributor Track and Reseller Tracking Services. In the third quarter of 2020, the decline was 1% compared to the same quarter of 2019.
Year to date through September, channel revenue increased 7% year over year, compared to a 3% decline for the same time period in 2020 over 2019, according to a press release on Wednesday (Nov. 17).
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“Resellers are benefiting from an improving economy across all verticals, especially midsize and enterprise customer segments that support remote workforces,” said Mike Crosby, director and B2B technology industry analyst for NPD. “As we head into the last few months of 2021, look for organizations across the channel to focus on business continuity and productivity. With so much change occurring real-time within many organizations, return to work, hybrid work weeks and digital transformation efforts, organizations need to be able to manage these shifts effectively with minimal disruption to the business,” Crosby added.
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Channel revenue is also higher than it was in the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, per NPD. “This is being driven by needs to support an increasingly hybrid workforce, in addition to higher average sales prices, as a result of component shortages and increased shipping costs,” according to the report.
Security software gains increased 14%, notebooks rose 28% and monitors increased 12%. All are anticipated to continue seeing increases through September. Sales of “collaboration products” are seeing an uptick in sales as people start going back to the office in part or full capacity.
“Collaboration software sales, combining cloud and on-premise, are up 10% year to date in 2021, and large format commercial displays have seen 18% gains. Cloud revenues alone have increased 34% year to date and growth is expected to continue,” per the report.
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