COLUMBUS, Ohio — Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) released its monthly TRENDS report, which showed the average sales growth for reporting HVACR distributor members increased 5.4 percent in January 2014. The annualized growth is now at 6.1 percent and back to the 5-6 percent range, where it had been for most of 2013.
January 2013 and 2014 each had 22 billing days, but the January weather this year disrupted operations in many parts of the country.
“The 5.4 percent gain could be considered healthy because of the challenging weather much of the country experienced during January 2014, and it is being compared to a strong 19.4 percent growth in the prior year,” said Brian Loftus, research and benchmarking analyst, HARDI. “National distributor Grainger estimated the extreme cold and snow trimmed their January same-store sales by 3 percent.”