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 6.9% during January.

The average annual sales growth for the 12 months through January 2021 is 4.8%.

“2021 is getting off to a great start,” said HARDI Market Research & Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus. “HARDI distributors were able to achieve 6.9% sales growth for the month despite two fewer billing days than the prior year. This helped the annual sales growth rate continue to recover towards mid single-digit territory.”

The Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, is now at 45.4 days.

“We see the economy improving as 2021 progresses,” said Loftus. “We can add this good TRENDS report to other encouraging recent economic indicators like durable goods orders, consumer confidence, industrial production and retail sales. All these things are looking up and that is why interest rates have been inching up.”