Plumbing & Heating Merchants’ May value sales up 12.2%. Volume up 3.8%, prices up 8.1%
Posted 21st July 2022
Total plumbing and heating value sales, from over 70% of specialist Plumbing & Heating Merchants throughout Great Britain, were +12.2% higher in May 2022 than in May 2021, driven more by price inflation (+8.1%) than volume (+3.8%). There was one more trading day this year (page 8). Like-for-like sales (which take trading day differences into account) were +6.6% higher.
Compared with 3 years ago (pre-Covid), total sales in April were flat (-0.5%), with one less trading day this year. Like-for-like sales were +4.5% higher.
Sales in May 2022 were +7.1% higher than in April 2022, driven by volume (+8.0%) rather than price inflation (-0.8%), with one more trading day this month. Like-for-like sales were +1.8% higher.
May’s PHMI index was 97.1, with one less trading day this year (page 10). The like-for-like sales index was 100.3
Value sales in the three months March to May 2022 were up +5.9% compared with the same three months last year, driven by price inflation of +8.8% with volume down -2.7%, with no difference in trading days (page 11).
Compared with the same months three years ago, sales in March 2022 to May 2022 were flat (-0.4%), with no difference in trading days.
Sales in March to May were +10.3% higher than in the preceding three months, driven mainly by volume (+10.6%) than price (-0.4%) and five more trading days in the most recent period. Like-for-like sales were 1.4% higher.
Year-to-date sales, January 2022 to May 2022 were +6.8% higher than last year’s but, with price inflation of +7.5% volume was down -0.7%, with no difference in trading days.
Year to date, January to May 2022 value sales were -2.5% lower compared to three years ago, January 2019 to May 2019. With two less trading days in the most recent period, like-for-like sales were -0.6% lower.
Sales in the last 12 months, June 2021 to May 2022 were +0.9% higher than in the previous year. With one less trading day in the most recent period, like-for-like sales were +1.3% higher (page 13). Volume was down -5.8% with price inflation of +7.1%.
This month we can see the effects of recent changes to the composition of the PHMI. Currently, the plumbing and heating merchant sector is settling down after a bout of intense M&A activity. We expect more merchants to contribute data, and coverage to grow, once these structural changes have worked themselves through.
As a result of changes in ownership, and new group formation, some merchants have left, and some joined the PHMI. The net effect in those contributing sales data to GfK’s merchant panel is a reduction in national branch coverage from 81% to 73% of the market, still the bulk of the market. The composition of companies contributing sales data is set out on (page 16).
An unexpected effect of the changes, is that companies contributing sales data in the PHMI appear to be growing faster than the market as a whole. M&A activity and new group formation is inherently disruptive, so perhaps that is not surprising in the short to medium term. GfK will be reviewing trends, but after the upheaval from Covid and the bounce back, and now this structural change, we expect the trends to stabilise.