News

RV industry giant Thor Industries has reported a 105.7 per cent increase in revenues to for its third fiscal quarter. The total net sales for the third quarter were US$3.46billion, with US$ 2.5billion coming from North American sales and US$894.2million coming from European sales. These figures also corresponded to a 14.6 per cent gross profit margin for the quarter – a 240 basis point improvement over the comparable prior-year period.

Bob Martin, president and CEO of Thor Industries, said: “We posted record results in our third fiscal quarter, achieving both the highest quarterly net sales and net income figures in the history of Thor Industries. These results show that growth continued unabated after the initial temporary shutdown of our dealers and Thor Industries' production lines in late March through the end of April of last year due to the pandemic. We have increased our production levels, often with modest capital expenditures, and intend to continue to increase production levels to address the ongoing, robust consumer and dealer demand for Thor Industries RV products, while also managing through continuing supply chain challenges.

“Demand for our products continues to grow at both the retail and wholesale levels. While our pace of production and shipments has accelerated, demand is so high that independent dealer inventories of Thor Industries products continue to decline while dealer sales are increasing. This increasing consumer demand has driven our order backlog to more than US$14 billion at the end of the quarter and includes units that will be needed to restock depleted dealer inventories. Since a significant number of units in our backlog have already been retail sold, we currently believe the restocking cycle will extend well into calendar 2022.”

The current strong demand for RV products shows no sign of slowing down in the United States even as its economy recovers from the pandemic – recent figures from the RV Industry Association are forecasting wholesale RV shipments of approximately 576,100 for the 2021 calendar year.

Bob concluded: “Looking ahead, we expect long-term health in the RV industry. We see the increased interest in the outdoors and RV lifestyle as a fundamental shift in consumer preferences, a shift that began before the pandemic and picked up steam over the last year. It is a trend we believe will continue to grow throughout our global marketspace.”