Our past has made us who we are today. A pioneering company, committed to evolving as we look to delight our stakeholders.
To accelerate our evolution, we have a growth strategy to help us offer our customers more choice, more benefits and more solutions for their industrial operations.
Our ambition? To continue growing and expanding our capabilities, with a firm commitment to doing business responsibly and contributing to a better world for all of us.
Our history
A legacy of innovation
From humble beginnings to epic adventures on a global scale, we’ve come a long way since JH Waring and PM Sebestyen kickstarted our journey in a London garage in 1937. Since then, we’ve experienced continual expansion that’s taken RS Group to establishing local operations in 31 countries, soaring past £1 billion in online revenue in 2017 and rebranding our whole Group to one brand in 2023.
Never standing still
1937
- Founded as Radiospares in a London garage by JH Waring and PM Sebestyen, supplying spare parts to radio repair shops.
1954
- Radiospares extends its product range beyond radio and television spares into electronic components.
1967
- Listed on the London Stock Exchange as Electrocomponents plc.
1971
- Radiospares becomes RS Components.
1990-2000s
- Launched our first transactional website in the UK in 1998.
- The RS network grew rapidly into 28 countries, including acquiring Allied Electronics and Automation in North America in 1999.
- Services for customers were improved, with online ordering, RS Purchasing Manager™, Same Day Despatch, RS’s Enterprise Business System – and RS’s Production Packaging.
2010s
- Online revenues topped £1bn in 2017.
- RS DesignSpark, RS PRO and OKdo businesses are established.
- Acquired IESA, an integrated supply management services provider, in 2018.
- Acquired Monition, a condition-monitoring systems business, in 2019.
2020s
- Acquired Needlers, a personal protection equipment business founded in 1865 in the UK.
2021
- Partnership established with The Washing Machine Project, a global charity that combines innovation and sustainable engineering to provide displaced and low-income communities with an accessible, affordable off-grid washing solution.
- Launched our 2030 ESG action plan - For a Better World, formed around four global goals and 15 ambitious actions for 2030.
- Acquired Liscombe, a personal protection equipment business in the UK, and Synovos, an integrated supply management service provider in the US.
2022
- Rebranded to a unified and integrated RS:
- Electrocomponents plc became RS Group plc.
- RS Components became RS.
- IESA and Synovos consolidated into RS Integrated Supply.
- Needlers and Liscombe became part of RS Safety Solutions.
- Acquired Risoul, a distributor of industrial and automation products and service solutions, in Mexico.
2023
- The RS rebrand completes with Allied Electronics and Automation in Americas becoming RS.
- Acquired Distrelec, a high-service, digital-led distributor of industrial and maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products.
2024
- Moved our Spanish fulfilment centre to a new energy-efficient site in Madrid.
- Acquired Trident, a specialist MRO distribution and service partner for the energy and natural resource industry in Western Australia
