Synnex Australia cracked its $2 billion target

Synnex achieved its goal of cracking $2 billion in Australia in 2015, according to financial information only recently made available.

The revenue milestone was no surprise – chief executive Kee Ong had expected the result when speaking to CRN in October 2015 – but it still marks a significant achievement as the distributor's highest-ever sales performance in Australia.

The 2015 results show that Synnex hit $2.08 billion, a growth in revenue of 13.1 percent from $1.84 billion the previous year. Headcount remained roughly static at 430 employees.

The distributor also posted profit of $9.6 million, down 34 percent in a result that was hampered by bad debt. "2015 was not a bad year," Kee Ong told CRN. "You can see [profit] is down because we wrote off a massive bad debt, otherwise overall it was a strong year as well."

Some of the highlights of Synnex's 2015 calendar year included expanding its partnership with Apple, landing Huawei as a vendor, announcing a distribution agreement with Vodafone and getting the full rights to components vendor Corsair. The year also marked Kee Ong's 10-year anniversary as Australian CEO.

Kee Ong was pragmatic about crossing the $2 billion threshold. "It is just a number. What is important is how solid the structure of the company is, the service levels and that our team members are happy with how things are going in good times and bad times.

"Sometimes we hit some headwinds, some challenges and we look at how to overcome that. Other times we have strong tailwinds that push us forward strongly and we capture that. At the end of the day, we look at the bottom line, we look at whether the company is solid and whether we have a secure plan.

"We are lucky that we crossed [$2 billion] but maybe this year we may have some strong headwinds. We put our head down and focus on what we are doing well," he added.

Interestingly for channel watchers, Synnex and rival distributor Ingram Micro reported similar revenues in 2015 – Ingram's $2.04 billion revenue was just 2 percent smaller than Synnex's $2.08 billion result.

The 2015 annual reports also help gauge a profile of the overall Australian distribution market, which is now dominated by six large companies: Synnex, Ingram, Dicker Data, Avnet, Westcon and Arrow ECS. Combined, they generated more than $6 billion in 2015.