AHAM ON DIP: A PAUSE, NOT A HARBINGER.

HFN: The Weekly Newspaper for the Home Furnishing Network, October, 1998

CHICAGO-A second month of lesser growth in the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers' shipment data is more indicative of a pause in the industry's record year than a harbinger of a turndown.

That was the conclusion of Bob Holding, AHAM's president here, who said the industry likely will end 1998 growing around 8 percent.

Going backward, increases in the last five months have been 8.3, 8.8, 18.7, 10.5 and 19.8 percent. Numbers can become skewed if a manufacturer moves a big shipment by a day to another month, but the longer-term pattern is clearer.

Holding said the bumps in August and September could be balanced against reports of sustained retail activity and the reductions in interest rates. He predicted that a short-term weakening...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.