Ingram Micro Reports $700-Million Yearly Sales Increase

Ingram Micro, the world’s leading distributor of computer products, said Monday that its 1992 sales increased 35% to $2.7 billion from $2 billion the year before.

The company, based in Santa Ana, also posted record sales of $820 million for the fourth quarter, a 35% increase from $611 million for the same period a year earlier. The privately held company, a subsidiary of Ingram Industries in Nashville, Tenn., does not release earnings figures.

Ingram Micro commands almost 30% of the U.S. market, industry analysts say, compared with about 18% for competitor Merisel Inc. in El Segundo.

“This has been a successful year,” said Linwood (Chip) Lacy, Ingram’s co-chairman and chief executive officer. The company “maintained our dominant market share leadership in the U.S. while gaining significant share in Canada, Europe and the export markets we serve.”

The company’s sales grew at a slower rate than in 1991. Ingram Micro’s move to new headquarters in Santa Ana disrupted business slightly, the company said, and wars among computer software makers and distributors lowered average selling prices.

Still, Ingram Micro continued to benefit from major computer manufacturers’ greater use of wholesale distribution channels. With the industry still in a shakeout, manufacturers are trying to hold down costs by trimming direct-sales forces and their own dealer networks.

Ingram Micro buys high volumes of products from manufacturers such as Compaq, Apple, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, then sells the inventory to retailers.

During the year, Ingram Micro made several management changes in its European operations, added vendors and acquired a British distribution company. Although sales of its products in Europe doubled compared with 1991, Lacy said, the company was not pleased with its results there.

Lacy said that the economy there is improving, however, and Ingram is “now poised to grow very rapidly in Europe.”

In the fourth quarter, the company’s biggest gains were in its sales of computer hardware, including interface cards, memory and mass-storage products. Hardware products accounted for 60% of its domestic sales during the period.