Redington Gulf ends distribution pact with Nokia

MUMBAI: IT products distributor Redington India today said its overseas subsidiary Redington Gulf's distribution pact with Finnish handset maker Nokia has been discontinued, which will negatively impact its sales in the current fiscal.

RGF has now partnered with Korean handset maker Samsung to distribute the latter's products in the African region, Redington India said in a filing to the BSE.

Nokia prefers single-brand distributors for its mobile phones.

"Inspite of our best efforts to convince Nokia, they have decided to discontinue the distribution contract with RGF with immediate effect," Redington said.

Redington Gulf distributes IT products for brands like HP, Acer, Samsung, Western Digital, Cisco and Avaya, while Nokia was the only telecom client.

"We estimate this development (Samsung's appointment and Nokia's exit) to have a negative impact of about 3.5 per cent on the expected consolidated sales and profits of the company for the financial year 2012-13," the filing said.

Redington India posted a net profit of Rs 67.81 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, while its total income stood at Rs 5,738.83 crore.

For 2010-11, the company's net profit stood at Rs 226 crore, while total income was Rs 17,458.54 crore.

The company's shares closed at Rs 84.20 a piece, down one per cent from the previous close on the BSE.