Electrical and industrial distributor Premier Farnell (LON: PFL) announced today that it expects lower than targeted revenue growth for Q2 this year.
The firm revealed 1.4 percent year-on-year sales growth in the first two months of the second quarter (May and June) but this is much lower than its 6 - 8 percent target for the whole quarter.
The company's shares fell more than 22 percent in early deals - to change hands at 189.4 pence.
"The board now expects that second quarter revenue growth will be less than the targeted range," said the company in an update, blaming the rapid change in the global business environment.
"Although June sales per day were stable with May, this performance reflects a marked moderation of growth rates in all global markets during June, particularly Europe and North America, and compares to the strong performance reported in Q2 last year when we delivered growth of 30 percent," it said.
"It is now apparent that significant inventory purchases were made in April and early May by industrial and technology customers to service their underlying demand following the Japanese earthquake."
In the light of the global slowdown, this inventory is now likely to take longer to be used before purchasing returns to more normal levels, said the firm.
The company pointed out that it continued to pursue growth opportunities and added that the firm's gross margins remained stable. It also continued to gain customers in-line with its target, through increased year-on year-web penetration.
It added: "As we did successfully when markets last slowed we will now accelerate and intensify the execution of our reshaping and cost reduction programmes."
"We anticipate that the benefits of these cost actions during the balance of the year will mitigate substantially the impact of the lower sales growth rates, and therefore the board continues to believe that Premier Farnell will deliver profitable growth this year, albeit marginally lower than our previous expectations," it said.