Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) on Oct. 6 released its monthly TRENDS report, which showed the average sales performance by HARDI distributors was an increase of 24.8% percent during August.

The average annual sales growth for the 12 months through August was 24.2% percent, according to a HARDI news release.

“The August sales growth was helped by an extra billing day,” HARDI market research & benchmarking analyst Brian Loftus said. “We estimate the sales growth would have been closer to 19% with the same number of billing days. This sales growth is helped by passing through price increases of more than 20%. Those increases have also been supporting the annual growth rate that has been steady near this pace for nine months.”

The days sales outstanding, a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, remains at 40 days as of August, HARDI said.

“The August DSO pre-COVID was more than 44 days,” Loftus said. “The DSO has been lower post-COVID, but we expect this to return to the pre-COVID levels. The year-to-year DSO has increased slightly for two consecutive months. Consumer sentiment, an important indicator of demand for HARDI member products and services, has bounced off the recent lows, but remains in bearish territory.”

Loftus added, “After home prices have increased by 40% during the past two years, mortgage rates have doubled, which is an additional challenge for buyers. Now home prices are rolling over and that will be an additional burden for consumer sentiment.”