For the fourth quarter, sales were also up big — 97% — thanks to its market-shifting acquisition last year.
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Building materials distributor also reported a profit of $71 million, up significantly from a profit of $18.2 million the same quarter a year ago.
For the fourth quarter, however, Arrow reported that sales increased 15.2% to 8.5 billion.
Fastenal’s reported daily sales for the month were down 9.1% versus a year due to softness in fastener sales and the non-residential construction end market.
“Disappointing” was how one analyst described the industrial distributor’s gross margin performance (down 290bps) in the period, but such a plunge was all too familiar for many companies in these pandemic-plagued times.
Industrial distributor Grainger says its fourth-quarter sales were up 3.3% as the company continued to deal with the “challenges and uncertainty” of COVID-19.
Like most companies, Applied continued to be impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and saw year-to-date sales fall 11.3% over the same period in 2019.
Year to date, sales increased 2.5% to $9.4 billion for the Phoenix, Arizona-based electronics distribution giant Avnet.
United Rentals also reported that sales for the fourth quarter of 2020 fell 10.1% compared to the same period of 2019.
Though revenue was flat, the diversified manufacturer posted double-digit profit growth in a year dominated by COVID-19 and pandemic-related product sales.
However, the manufacturer closed the year on a positive note with fourth-quarter sales up 2.3%.
On January’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Fastenal CEO Dan Florness and CFO Holden Lewis pulled back the curtain on how they view the company’s diminishing role of physical branches.
For the full year of 2020, Fastenal’s sales increased 5.9% over the previous year driven by nine strong months of safety and PPE sales to offset softer fastener business.
Bossard reports that sales in America region were down 7.9% in the year but increased 4.3% in the fourth quarter.
Profit for industrial distributor MSC plummets 41.5% in the fiscal first quarter ended Nov. 28.
Profit dips 25% in the period, but Enerpac continues to see improvement from its customers’ operations amid the pandemic.
COVID-19 product sales and acquisitions boosted Bunzl's revenue in 2020, but a slowdown in pandemic-related sales will stunt growth in 2021.
3M reports that sales increased 9% in the Americas and 10% in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) last month as the company continued its post-pandemic momentum.
Year-to-date sales for the engineering and construction firm were down 6.9% year-over-year.
After low-single-digit growth in 1Q, plumbing and HVAC distributor Ferguson PLC projects for the coming year accelerating M&A activity plus upbeat residential construction and renovation to offset softness in the commercial market.
