Ingram Micro expands ITAD as combined services sales rise 35%

By Grace Kim

Ingram Micro reported a 35% increase in lifecycle services sales in the fiscal third quarter ended Sept. 26, 2026, while announcing an expansion of IT asset disposition (ITAD) and repair capabilities.

On the Oct. 29 earnings call, CEO Paul Bay said: “Ingram was expanding ITAD and repair to help customers recover equipment value while meeting data security and sustainability requirements.” The announcement places hardware recovery among the priorities of a distributor with an extensive network of technology resellers.

The 35% increase signals growth in combined services, not a direct measure of the electronics-recovery stream. The reported business includes supply chain services, reverse logistics and ITAD, and Ingram did not disclose how much its ITAD operations grew.

What does the expansion change for independent ITAD operators?

It creates an opening for independent operators to work with channel partners, but it also places a competitor in the recovery chain. Ingram is already involved in supplying enterprise customers with new equipment, so channel partners must decide who manages recovery when those customers replace technology.

Resellers can influence both purchasing and equipment replacement, making them potentially valuable referral partners. Independent operators need to establish who manages recovery when a shared customer buys replacement technology, because Ingram can offer that service through the same channel.

North American growth remains a mixed indicator

In North America, sales in Ingram’s “other services” business increased 114% from a year earlier. According to the company, US reverse logistics and repair drove most of that gain, with a smaller contribution from the return to supply chain services.

The category also includes ITAD, alongside repair work, product returns and corporate equipment disposition. Those activities serve different customer needs, so operators cannot translate the 114% increase directly into additional retired-device volumes.

Bay described the supply-chain return as using available capacity within Ingram’s existing infrastructure. The announcement set no completion deadline for the ITAD and repair expansion and identified no new facility, processing line or tonnage target.

Higher PC prices do not establish more returned devices

Ingram’s PC business produced a different demand signal. Bay said: “PC unit sales fell by a low-double-digit percentage, although higher average selling prices more than offset the decline in revenue terms.”

AI PCs accounted for roughly half of PC revenue. That mix matters for electronics recovery because higher spending on new computers can reflect more expensive configurations without producing a corresponding increase in devices available for collection.

The company expects the refresh cycle to continue into the fourth quarter at a slower pace. Bay also said smaller business customers appeared to be extending PC replacement cycles, suggesting that some customers were stretching existing equipment rather than following the purchasing schedules of larger enterprises.

Recovery companies therefore need to examine customer replacement plans directly rather than infer device volumes from Ingram’s PC revenue. A prolonged refresh cycle can support the distributor’s financial results while limiting retired-computer flows into repair and disposition channels.

Ingram’s broader growth does not isolate ITAD

Ingram reported net sales of $15.22 billion for the 13 weeks ended Sept. 26, up 20.8% from the comparable quarter. Advanced solutions sales, including servers and AI infrastructure, grew 40%, and the company said it raised full-year guidance following its September Capital Markets Day.

Those figures establish the scale of the distributor and its broader technology activity, not the performance of its ITAD unit. Ingram accompanied the 35% lifecycle-services increase with no separate disclosure of ITAD revenue, recovered-device count or processing volume.

Ingram’s move also makes recovery ownership a commercial issue for channel partners, because the distributor can direct both new-equipment sales and expanded ITAD and repair services through the same relationships. The next market milestone is the fourth-quarter refresh, with the pace of replacement among smaller customers shaping the near-term flow of retired equipment.