IT Distribution Revenues Remain Stable with Software and Security Led Growth, According to the IDC North America Distribution Tracker, Powered by GTDC

Distributor revenues inched up from the previous quarter to $20.2 B in the third quarter of 2024 (3Q24), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) North America Distribution Tracker (NADT). Year-over-year growth was down a fraction of a percent with continued growth in Software, Personal Computing, and Security, but offset by declines in Network Infrastructure, Services, and AV.

“IT distributors remain a critical component of a successful strategy,” said Ruth Flynn, research vice president, IDC Tracker & Data Products. “The flexibility and product coverage of IT distributors helped balance factors like interest rates and political uncertainty with post-pandemic recovery in a challenging Q3. An example is PC growth of 2% through distribution where overall PC shipments were down 6% in preliminary Q3 reporting.”

Personal Computing sales for 3Q24 came in at $3.6B, which at 2% year-over-year is a second consecutive quarter of growth. The notebook market is showing a return to normalcy at 4.6% year-over-year post the covid volatility. The product mix continues to shift towards AI PC configurations with 24% of notebook revenue now derived from AI PCs, which is up 142% year-over-year.

Software saw 11.8% year-over-year growth settling at $4.4 B. All of the largest software categories grew, but most notably, Embedded Software grew 22.8% year-over-year driven by Cisco as the large amount of their network infrastructure hardware sold in 2023 gets deployed in 2024 and the associated embedded software is upgraded.

Additionally the cybersecurity market grew nicely in 3Q24 with 7.4% year-over-year growth in security software, and 2.6% year-over-year growth in the security appliance market, driven by Palo Alto Networks which solidly holds the number one spot with almost 42% share of sales.

IDC's North America Weekly Distribution Tracker and North America Monthly Distribution Tracker are built on the exclusive partnership between IDC and the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) and provides the industry's most comprehensive view of technology distribution data and market trends in the U.S. and Canada. The data in these Trackers is actual sales data collected weekly from sales receipts across the largest distributors in North America for more than 1,000 brands over several years. This data is mapped to IDC's taxonomy with over 200 categories organized into 13 distinct product groups with detailed product attributes across categories.

To learn more, visit; www.idc.com