We may be approaching the end of the year, but there’s still much to dissect and discuss in the IT channel. As always, your top source of regular market insight is CONTEXT’s weekly webinar briefings—where our expert analysts from across the globe share key data and trends to help improve your data-driven decision-making. Among our highlights this month are falling reseller counts, AI growth, and distributor strength in the PC market.

Here's our pick of the top stories in more detail:

Reseller count drops 7% annually in France in October

CONTEXT’s ChannelWatch report is compiled from the largest IT reseller survey in Europe, delivering invaluable insight into the health of the sector. It revealed a 6.8% year-on-year (YoY) decline in reseller numbers in France in October, and declines across the board in the UK, Italy and Spain. The falling count for small and medium resellers (SMRs) was particularly sharp as more firms consolidated.

Aside from in Italy, average revenue per reseller increased in the period, suggesting that remaining businesses are becoming more productive or focusing on higher value products. Average revenue per reseller in October increased by the largest margin in Spain (11.7% YoY), followed by France (3.1%) and the UK (0.7%). In Italy, the figure declined by -3.2% YoY.

Distributors are the clear route-to-market winner in PCs

CONTEXT’s Routes to Market (RTM) is a relatively new analytics report designed to help readers understand the strength of distribution compared to other channels. It revealed that, in October, distributors were the clear winners in terms of PC sales, accounting for 47% of products bought by end users. This is the culmination of a steady increase in RTM share since March. While encouraging, we normally expect more non-distribution sales in November and December. There were also regional differences. In Italy, around 60% of products were sold by distributors in October, while in France, non-distribution dominated. In Germany and the UK, they were neck and neck.

Spanish resellers commit to AI spending

According to our ChannelWatch report earlier this year, 45% of Spanish resellers say they’ve started working with partners on AI concepts, including software (49%), PCs (14%), servers (20%). Additionally, over half (56%) consider the technology to be “very important”, “very significant” or “significant” to their business strategy. Chatbots, machine learning and predictive analytics are particularly favoured. Yet just 14% are “somewhat ready” or “very ready” to integrate AI into existing systems, highlighting significant opportunities for future growth. That comes as revenue growth has slumped -2.9% YoY year to date (YTD) in the country, despite positive growth returning in Q3.

Germany drives AI-capable notebooks to 31% market share

Germany is leading a surge in AI-capable notebook sales—i.e. notebooks based on chipsets with neural processing units (NPUs). In Week 43, CONTEXT recorded the market share of such machines at 31%, while in Germany it reached 48%. This growth was observed across most of the top OEMs, particularly in the commercial segment, rather than being driven by a one-off project or sale. Although less pronounced, we see the same trends happening across Europe. Copilot + PCs accounted for around 5% of AI-capable notebooks in Week 43, with most (77%) of these based on Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, while Intel Core Ultra Series 2 accounted for 15%, and AMD Ryzen AI 300 was on 8%.

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