Heating, Air-conditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) recently completed the sixth annual Mid-Season HVAC Distributor Survey in partnership with JP Morgan Equity Research. HARDI presented the findings with a webinar featuring JP Morgan’s HVAC industry analyst Mr. C. Stephen Tusa. The presentation serves as a follow-up to the annual outlook presentation HARDI gave earlier this year.
In the residential sector, the themes from the selling season have confirmed the predictions at the beginning of 2014. Revenue growth is in line with the industry; Q1 was good and Q2 was solid.
Plus, 14+ SEER mix equipment sales are up, R22 dry ship units are continuing to decline.
Replacement demand offset slightly weaker new construction. At the same time, replacement parts were down indicating less repair activity. Pricing demands were good while inventories were described by distributors as “about the same as sales.”
Eighty-four percent of distributors saw demand improving in 2Q14 with high single-digits growth as opposed to 71% last year.
Weather and economy played their roles as well. Approximately 50% of survey respondents saw negative impact from the weather. Thirty percent of respondents gave a positive response regarding the economy versus a 20% negative response.
Residential construction was positive with almost 50% reporting a positive impact, 36% gave a neutral response while only 16% responded negatively.
The commercial end market should remain stable with low single digit growth, but slightly weaker than last year.
“Commercial markets … certainly have not had the bounceback that residential guys have had in the last couple of years,” remarked Tusa.
The full report and webinar playback is now available for purchase on HARDI’s website: www.hardinet.org/ mid-season-hvac-distributor-survey. Visit www.hardinet.org for additional information.