Have you heard of the CONTEXT IT Industry Forum webinars? Every Wednesday we take a closer look at the channel trends impacting Europe and beyond. Our expert team of analysts from across the globe share the insight you need to make the right business decisions.

Among our highlights for March 2025 are a disappointing Q1 for enterprise sales, a good start to the year for the Nordics and a positive Week 11 driven by mobile computing sales. Here are those top picks for the month in more detail:

Mobile computing drives a positive Week 11

Week 11 recorded sales through distribution of €1.7bn, with revenue growth on the up in most of the top five countries, led by Spain. Much of this is down to the great performance of mobile computing in the period, with sales nudging above the Revenue Trend Index line. Digging deeper, we can see that this is down to tablet PCs. In particular, it’s the new iPad Air, which features a new processor, as well as older generation models which are selling at reduced prices. This bodes well for the UK, which is coming up to the end of the financial year. We’re hopeful of a strong end to the quarter there and in other markets.

AI server sales a rare bright spot in a disappointing Q1 for enterprise

In the enterprise segment, Q1 to date has seen AI servers increase their market share to 8.2%, up from 7.4% in the previous quarter. It’s reassuring to see that revenue in this space is now driven less by a small number of large deals, and is relatively evenly spread between vendors. However, we’re yet to see some of the big AI deals we heard about back in December and January. Overall, it’s been a disappointing Q1 so far, with revenue sales growth failing to hit our forecasted range in any category. As of Week 10, it stood at -9.7% year-on-year (YoY) in enterprise networking, 1.1% YoY in servers and -8.8% YoY in enterprise storage.

A great start to 2025 for the Nordics

The Nordics region has got off to a great start this year, outperforming the rest of Europe for the past several weeks, and sitting just above the Revenue Trend Index line. Over this time, the value market has been the big driver of success, especially software sales, although volume is now approaching 2023 levels. Almost all categories have seen a positive start to 2025, especially mobile computing and even desktop PCs. Overall, revenue growth hit 14.7% YoY in January and 7.4% YoY in February, with Q1 sales expected to exceed our forecast of 7% YoY by two percentage points. Only infrastructure is struggling slightly, but we’re hopeful for a stronger March.

PC stock levels back to normal in UK, France and Italy

PC stock levels spiked at the start of the year, especially in the UK, hitting over 20 weeks in desktops and more than 12 weeks for notebooks. However, the good news is that things are now settling down. In the UK, this normalisation came at the end of January when sales of notebooks really picked up. As of Week 8, there were around eight weeks of stock for business notebooks and two weeks for consumer. That can be tied to an uptick in retail activity. France and Italy also went back to more reasonable levels of stock in the consumer and commercial markets. The hope is that things will continue on this even keel as we round out the quarter.

For more on these and other IT channel trends, tune into CONTEXT’s weekly IT Industry Forum webinars. Register here.