Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) has released its monthly TRENDS report, showing the average sales performance by HARDI distributors was an increase of 35.3 percent during January 2022. The average annual sales growth for the 12 months through January 2022 is 25 percent.

The sales growth during January was helped by an extra billing day and passing through the extraordinary price increases of the past year,” said HARDI Market Research and Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus. “There is no denying that demand has been extraordinary also.  During the past ten years there have five months when average monthly sales growth exceeded 30 percent and all five were during the past year.”

The Days Sales Outstanding, a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, was 43.5 days at the end of January 2022. “The monthly DSO is now two days faster than last year at this time,” Loftus said.  “This rate is considerably better than the pre-pandemic norm for January in the 49 day area.”

“TRENDS sales growth remains impressive despite collapsing consumer confidence, but this pace is not the new normal,” Loftus said. “Retail sales at building material and supply dealers has slowed to 13.8 percent through December.  Since that has been leading our TRENDS annual sales growth by six months since 2013, we can expect the annual pace of TRENDS to be considerably lower this summer. What goes up, must slow down.”

HARDI members do not receive financial compensation in exchange for their monthly sales data and can discontinue their participation without prior notice or penalty. Participation is voluntary, and the depth of market coverage varies from region to region. An independent entity collects and compiles the data that can include products not directly associated with the HVACR industry.