Heating, Airconditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) announced North American HVACR distributor sales for the month of May 2010 were up nearly 8% from last year in its Monthly Targeted and Regional Economic News for Distribution Strategies (TRENDS) Report. This marks the third consecutive month that overall distributor sales were up from the previous year. 

Among HARDI’s seven U.S. regions, six were up while the Western region ended a string of two consecutive months of growth. Canada continued its strong run and is the only HARDI region showing a running 12 months in the positive.   

According to Alan Beaulieu, HARDI’s chief economist, “Oregon and Washington had a horrible month for housing permits in May, with April to May declines of 16.9% and 11.0%, respectively. The 1/12 plummeted for both states after having posted some solid gains earlier in the year. CA posted an 11.7% 1/12 for the month. What does it all mean? We can’t be dogmatic about it, but the folks in the Northwest probably got hurt, but overall the trend seems consistent with the general HARDI trend once you factor in this region’s volatility.”  

HARDI also announced several new enhancements to the industry’s only index for distributor performance. The May sales TRENDS Report featured nine new graphs and June’s report will debut the first tracking of distributor efficiency represented by sales per employee.  These new features to the monthly sales TRENDS Reports are in addition to the incorporation of average heating and cooling degree days and a consumer lending analysis to HARDI’s Quarterly Regional TRENDS Forecast available exclusively to distributor and supplier member companies.  

A new monthly Manufacturing Optimization Report exclusively for subscribing Manufacturer/Supplier members will also debut.   For more information contact HARDI’s headquarters or visit www.hardinet.org.