Majaps Take Drubbing In Nov: AHAM

By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 1/10/2012

WASHINGTON — Wholesale sales of major appliances took their steepest plunge in seven months in November as dealers took a breather after building up Black Friday inventories.

Factory shipments fell 9.6 percent for the four weeks, ended Nov. 26, to 4.1 million units, compared with shipments of 4.5 million units during the year-ago period, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) reported.

Shipments were essentially flat the month before.

Declines were seen in nearly every category, the latest AHAM data showed, although room air conditioners led the plunge with shipments dropping a whopping 73 percent year over year to just 15,000 units.

More troubling were the steep, doubledigit declines reported for the three core majap categories of laundry, refrigeration and cooking. Wholesale sales of washers fell 12.4 percent to about 607,400 units, while dryers dropped almost 21 percent on weakness in both gas and electric models.

In food preservation, refrigerator shipments were down by 11.4 percent to some 618,000 units, and unit wholesale sales of stand-alone freezers dropped by 14.6 percent. The total cooking category was off by nearly 9 percent last month, led lower by gas ovens and ranges (down 21 percent and 15 percent, respectively).

Their electric-fueled counterparts experienced mid- to high-single digit declines, including microwave ovens whose shipments fell by 9.6 percent from November 2010.

Putting in the strongest November performance for a general category was kitchen cleanup, which rose 5 percent on a 16-percent increase in disposer shipments, although dishwashers were down by 3.7 percent.

The greatest growth for an individual product sector went to dehumidifiers, shipments of which rose 71.6 percent to 32,200 units.

Year-to-date shipments for all major appliances were essentially flat through Nov. 26, at 56.1 million units.