Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI), Columbus, Ohio, this week released its monthly TRENDS report, showing the average sales performance by HARDI distributors was an increase of 21.1% during February.

The average annual sales growth for the 12 months through February 2021 is 6.1%.

“February 2021 was help by a very easy comparison,” said HARDI Market Research & Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus. “Demand was soft during February 2020 when heating degree days were at or below normal in six of our seven economic regions, and then strong this year when heating degree days were above normal in six of the regions during February 2021.”

The Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, is now at 43.4 days.

“The unusually cold and challenging conditions during February caused a noticeable hiccup in many economic data streams, but not our TRENDS report,” said Loftus. “The February sales growth rate was helped by the easy comparison, price increases being passed through, back-ordered product availability, and the rising economic tide we see with job gains of 233K in January and 468K in February. It’s a good bet that annual growth rate number is heading higher.”