Centerprise prepare to take sizeable chunk of UK PC market

Outside of the PC industry, the name Centerprise might not ring a bell. Inside the industry, it is known as a major IT distributor – based in Basingstoke – with around 30 years' experience in the UK channel. Centerprise has just made a rather interesting acquisition, which could create interesting ripples throughout the UK system market. KitGuru places a glass against the wall and listens for info.

With today's announcement that Centerprise has acquired long-established PC development and gaming brand YOYOTech, the supply chain has been collapsed and that brings up some interesting possibilities.

Collapsing the supply chain means reducing the steps it takes to get a product from its source, into the hands of a consumer.

A good example of this happened in the mobile phone market. At the start of the 90s, everyone had a friend who ‘did mobiles'. Within 10 years, that part of the supply chain had been killed off and only a handful of independents like Carphone Warehouse survived. The shops we see on the high street today are all owned by the major vendors – Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, EE etc.

There is a history of distributors producing machines themselves and selling direct to major customers. Arguably the most famous of these ‘direct from disti to high street' examples is a company called CMS up near Liverpool.

Never heard of it?

Most people haven't – but you may have heard of low end brands like ZooStorm that CMS produces for high street giants like Argos.

So just how big is Centerprise?  Well, according to the latest available information, revenues for 2012 were close to $70m – which is pretty healthy given the current state of the global economy. At the same time, with owner Rafi Razzak working closely alongside Group CEO Garry Stevens, Centerprise has also managed to increase gross profit by around 1%. Any increase here is a positive thing.

According to info pushed out by Centerprise earlier today, the company's solid situation has been built on its ability to deliver major projects to Defence, Education and Government sectors. Nice work if you can get it. That line up is all about ‘sensible', whereas overclocking/performance brands are all about ‘fun'. That almost certainly means that the YOYOTech brand has been acquired to attack new markets. Watch this space, we guess.

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KitGuru says: With a limited number of sales available to go round, any increase in Centerprise activity around YOYOTech is going to impact other PC companies. Despite the rain clouds overhead, it looks like 2013 will be hotting up after all.

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