Grainger (NYSE: GWW), Chicago, on Thursday reported third-quarter sales of $3 billion, up 2.4% compared to the year-ago quarter, or 4.6% on an organic daily basis compared to the third quarter 2019 (excluding divestitures).
Grainger’s profit increased 3% to $240 million, while diluted earnings per share of $4.41 were up from $4.25 in 3Q 2019 and beat analysts’ estimates by 25 cents.
“I am extremely proud of the Grainger team for delivering strong results in both our U.S. high-touch and endless assortment businesses, as we continued to support new and existing customers, while prioritizing team member safety,” said DG Macpherson, chairman and CEO. “In the third quarter, we captured significant market share by delivering on our core growth initiatives. We also continued to prudently manage our costs and saw sequential margin improvement as non-pandemic volume improved in the quarter. These strong results and stabilizing trends show the value that Grainger brings to customers every day.”
Daily sales for the quarter increased 2.4% as compared to the 2019 third quarter. Organic daily sales, which exclude revenues from the divested Fabory and China businesses from the prior year results, increased 4.6% as compared to the 2019 third quarter. These sales increases were fueled by share gains in the U.S. segment and significant growth in the endless assortment businesses which more than offset declines in the Canada segment.
U.S. segment sales were up 3.1%, outgrowing the U.S. MRO market which declined an estimated 5% to 6%. This increase was driven largely by higher volume of pandemic-related products, partially offset by year-over-year decreases in non-pandemic product sales. The declines in non-pandemic product sales continued to moderate, while growth in pandemic product sales remained elevated, but began to ease from the levels experienced earlier in the year.
For the first nine months, Grainger’s sales increased 2.5% to $8.9 billion while its profit decreased 29.4% to $527 million.
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