Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) released its monthly TRENDS report, showing sales by HARDI distributors declined by 1.1% during November 2024.

The annual sales growth for the 12 months through November 2024 is an increase of 3.0%. 

“A sales decline could indicate a pause to our annual sales growth rate recovery, but not in this case,” said HARDI Macroeconomic & Residential Market Analyst Brian Loftus. “November 2024 had one less selling day than November last year.  We estimate the sales growth would have been 3.9% with the same number of billing days.”

The monthly sales survey also calculates distributor’s Days Sales Outstanding, a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills.  “The brisk DSO pace of this summer continues into heating season,” Loftus added. “The post-Covid DSO for November was 43 days the past few years, but less than 40 during November this year.”

“During the past year we have seen inventories decline, and the sales-to-inventory ratio increase, as distributor’s confidence in the supply chain recovered,” said Loftus. “Inventories have been increasing to prepare for the equipment transition. It looks like the supply chain is back to normal.”