June Majap Shipments Up 3.1%: AHAM

By Alan Wolf On Aug 4 2008 - 6:00am

Monthly industry shipments of major appliances rose for the first time in over a year.

According to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM), wholesale sales of white good increased 3.1 percent in June to 8.2 million units, the first monthly increase recorded since May 2007.

That was the good news.

The bad news is the gains came largely on the back of room air conditioners, shipments of which soared 92 percent year-over-year as an early summer heat blanketed much of the country in June.

In contrast, the core majap categories of cooking, refrigeration, laundry and kitchen cleanup all continued to experience mid-single- to low double-digit declines.

Among the latter, dishwasher shipments fell 16 percent to some 588,200 units in June and remain down 12.4 percent for the year.

In cooking, shipments were off 11 percent in total, to 1.8 million units, led by a 27 percent decline in electric ovens and a 21.8 percent drop in gas stove tops in June.

Microwave oven shipments slipped nearly 5 percent for the month.

Food preservation fared better, with refrigerator shipments down 9.3 percent to 1.1 million units while freezers, the only category besides room air to enter the plus column, grew 13 percent.

Within home laundry, washer shipments slipped 3.5 percent to approximately 854,900 units while dryer shipments fell 6.7 percent, dragged down by a 15.5 percent drop off in gas-fueled models.

In contrast, home comfort was up 51.3 percent, buoyed by the near doubling of room air shipments, which offset a 43.9 percent decline in wholesale dehumidifier sales.

Shipments for the AHAM 6, the industry snapshot category containing the core washer, dryer, dishwasher, refrigerator, freezer, oven and range businesses, fell 9.5 percent in June to nearly 4.2 million units, and remains down 8.8 percent for the year.

Total industry shipments year to date are similarly off 8.5 percent, to about 38.4 million units from 41.9 million units shipped during the comparable prior-year period.

June sales cover the four-week period between May 25 and June 28.