Bytes surpasses £1bn in H1 as it bets on AI as 'defining' IT trend

The reseller owes a chunk of its growth to weighty public sector contracts

Bytes Technology Group has hit the £1bn mark in its half-year results for the six months ended 31 August 2023.

Gross invoiced income (GII) surged 38 per cent during the period, totalling £1.082bn.

The strong growth in GII stems from Bytes winning large public sector Microsoft contracts, leading to public sector GII spiking by 44.4 per cent.

Revenues came in at £108.7m, representing a growth of 16.3 per cent for H1 FY24.

"Our success in the period was driven by the combination of our skilled workforce and strong vendor relationships, which have once again enabled us to support our customers and grow our business," said Bytes Technology Group CEO, Neil Murphy.

The reseller boss adds that while the economic backdrop remains mixed, Bytes has continued to see strong demand from corporate and public sector customers for security, cloud adoption, digital transformation, hybrid datacentres and remote working solutions.

This healthy business performance has allowed the software, security, AI and cloud services group to grow its headcount to more than 1,000 for the first time.

"A shift to AI products will be one of the defining trends in the IT services sector in the coming years, and we are well-placed to capitalise on that opportunity.

"We stand to benefit from our long-standing relationship with Microsoft, whose Copilot product we are already trialling and will be available more widely in the near future. We are also looking forward to working with our other vendor partners that are developing AI software tools."

The group enrolled in Microsoft's early access programme for Copilot, an AI assistant feature for Microsoft 365 applications, to improve productivity internally and in preparation to support our customers.

Similarly, Softcat said this week it is banking on AI and being part of Microsoft Copilot's early access programme following its latest annual results.