Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI), of Columbus, Ohio, released its monthly TRENDS report, showing the average sales performance by HARDI distributors was an increase of 16.1% during October.

The average annual sales growth for the 12 months through October is 21%, HARDI said.

“The unusual sales growth of 2021 continued with the first month of heating season,” said HARDI Market Research & Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus. “The median monthly sales growth during the past year is 21.3% versus the ten-year median of 7.9%. Sales growth during October 2021 would have been close to the recent median if it had the same number of billing days as the prior year.”

The Days Sales Outstanding, a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, was 43 days at the end of October 2021.

“The monthly DSO is comparable to the prior year level,” said Loftus. “The pre-pandemic norm for October was 47
days.”

Loftus added, “The record sales growth is a result of strong end market demand and the pass through of the extraordinary price increases. The Producer Price Index for Primary Air Conditioning, Forced Air Heating and Refrigeration products has increased by 12.6% through October 2021. The median PPI increase across the past ten or twenty prepandemic years was only 2%.”