On Friday, Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI), Columbus, Ohio, released its monthly TRENDS report, showing the average sales performance by HARDI distributors was an increase of 33.2% in March.

The average annual sales growth for the 12 months through March 2021 is 8.7% percent.

“The 33% growth for the month is a new record,” said HARDI Market Research & Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus.  “The gain in March was helped by an easy comparison and an extra billing day, but the gain would have been in the 27% area with the same number of billing days.  Sales growth has been 20% or more for three of the past four months.”

The Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), which is a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, remains at 43 days.

“The DSO has been faster than normal since June 2020 and that persists,” said Loftus. “This time of year it is normally in the range of 47 to 49 days, and should probably more than 55 now given the record strong demand. We believe the 43 DSO indicates some customers are using their elevated cash reserves for planned replacement instead of waiting for an equipment failure.”

The report cited other factors that contributed to the robust sales recently at HARDI Distributors, including the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and monthly job gains.