Heating, Airconditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) announced North American HVACR distributor sales for the month of June 2010 were up over 10% from last year in its Monthly Targeted and Regional Economic News for Distribution Strategies (TRENDS) Report.

This marks the fourth consecutive month in which overall distributor sales were up from the previous year. All of HARDI’s seven U.S. regions were up in June with four exceeding double-digit growth. Canada continued its strong run and remains the only HARDI region showing a running twelve months in the positive.

HARDI’s Chief Economist, Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research, says the average 3% drop in annual sales over 12 months is  the smallest decline reported among HARDI Members in over 14 months. 

HARDI sources say the hot weather across most major U.S. markets helped fuel June’s strong numbers along with a steady increase in sales of high-efficiency equipment. HARDI’s recent joint survey with JP Morgan Equity Research showed nearly a third of HARDI distributors say 16-SEER equipment made up more than 15% of their total unitary sales so far this season.

June’s Sales TRENDS Report also debuted a new indicator of distributor efficiency by reporting the month’s Sales per Employee by region and company size. This first month shows 2010 well ahead of year-end 2009 and 2008 levels, further reflecting the positive shift in product mix. However there were several significant variances between distributors of various sizes and geographies. This was added to capture and enable the benchmarking of seasonal staffing adjustments, as well as better characterize employment levels among HARDI distributors.

For more information about HARDI’s Monthly TRENDS Reports, including access to the complete reports, and Quarterly TRENDS Forecasts, contact HARDI’s Talbot Gee at (888) 253-2128 or tgee@hardinet.org.