B2B Technology Reseller Sales Up 12% in 2021

The U.S. B2B technology reseller channel saw strong growth in 2021 with year-over-year revenue sales up 12%. That’s according to researchers at The NPD Group. When comparing 2021 sales to 2019 – before the pandemic – sales grew 8%, based on NPD’s reseller tracking service data.

Over the last year, these channel sales trends highlight the importance of security and work-from-home needs. In the fourth quarter, B2B software sales were up 16%, driven by strong demand for endpoint protection software (up 27%). Despite beginning to slow, work-from-home device revenue sales remained strong last quarter. Peripherals including keyboards (up 41%) and mice (up 21%) drove growth, in place of USB cameras (down 29%) and PC headsets (up 1%).

Midsize Companies to Accelerate

NPD’s Mike Crosby

Mike Crosby is director and B2B technology industry analyst for The NPD Group.

“Following strong 2021 performance, the reseller channel may see some shifts in quarter one 2022,” Crosby said. “We anticipate device sales will slow in the education vertical – shifting focus away from device deployments to more IT infrastructure and security – and that enterprise and midsized companies will accelerate their IT spend overall with technology mix shifting away from hardware to more software, cloud and managed services.”

Small businesses continue to face headwinds. They will likely focus on refreshing critical needs until the market stabilizes more. This leaves opportunity for investment and growth further into 2022, he added.

Growth in Educational Services

In the fourth quarter, data center revenue sales were up 7% year-over-year. While this shows recovery for the segment, sales are still down 3% versus 2019’s pre-pandemic levels. Data center categories that led growth include power (up 14%), storage (up 13%), and compute (up 12%).

According to NPD’s vertical reseller tracking data, the educational services sector grew the fastest year-over-year in 2021, adding $1 billion in sales. Professional services, retail trade and information each added nearly $750 million.