United States. The International Association of Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Distributors (HARDI) released its monthly trend report, showing that average sales of HARDI distributors declined by 1.5 percent in August 2017.
The annualized average growth for the 12 months to August 2017 was 6.7 percent.
"I think the slight decline for the month is really a very good performance because August 2017 compares to the extraordinary August 2016 when average distributor sales increased by 19.5%," said Brian Loftus, Market Analyst and Analysis at HARDI. "Population-weighted cooling degree days were 40 percent above normal in August 2016. Even though August 2017 had 7 percent more degrees of cooling than normal, it was 26 percent less than the previous year's heat wave."
"One would think that this month was probably driven by Hurricane Harvey injecting some noise into the equation," said Connor Lokar, HARDI Senior Economist. "But the results don't support that. Sales in the Southwest were actually up 0.5 percent, on average, for the month. While the 0.5 percent growth would normally not be impressive, it exceeds the total average decline for the month."
Sales Pending Days (DSOs), a measure of how quickly customers pay their invoices, is now close to 42 days. "July and August are the seasonal low points for the annual DSO cycle," Loftus said. "This report matches the August 2015 and 2016 reports, so there is no sign of economic fatigue or stress."
