Generac’s 4Q 2020 financial report was loaded with some eye-catching growth figures, but industry executives believe 2021 has a shot at being even better because of rising demand for its residential standby power generators, continuing issues with utility power outages and growth in its new power storage business.
According to the press release, net sales increased +29% to a record $761 million during 4Q 2020, as compared to $591 million in 2019’s fourth quarter. For the full year, net sales increased +13% to a company record of $2.5 billion during 2020, as compared to $2.2 billion in 2019.
Residential product sales drove a big chunk of this rise, as sales of its residential generators and storage products h increased +55% to $499 million as compared to $323 million last year. Commercial & Industrial (C&I) product sales decreased -9% to $199 million as compared to $217 million in the prior year. On an annual basis, C&I product sales declined 19% to $702 million as compared to $872 million in the prior year.
Generac is initiating its full-year 2021 net sales growth guidance to be approximately +25% to +30% compared to the prior year on an as-reported basis, which includes approximately +2% of favorable impact from acquisitions and foreign currency.
“We continued to experience incredible demand for our home standby generators due to significantly higher power outage activity in recent quarters and the “Home as a Sanctuary” trend gained further traction, resulting in substantial backlog for these products as we enter 2021,” said Aaron Jagdfeld, president and CEO, in the press release. “In addition, shipments of our PWRcell energy storage systems continued to further ramp during the quarter and were significantly higher on a sequential basis, and have considerable momentum heading into 2021. C&I product shipments continued to be negatively impacted from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the year-over-year revenue decline moderated as we saw certain end markets began to recover.”
“2020 was a very challenging year and I am extremely proud of the way our teams responded, particularly as we maintained operations with our designation as an essential business. In the face of a global pandemic, our record performance during the year was even more impressive as we made important progress with our evolution into an energy technology solutions company. We expect 2021 to be another very strong year given the significant momentum for our residential products and an expected return to growth for our C&I products. Our strong balance sheet and significant liquidity puts Generac in the enviable position to further capitalize on our key mega trends and drive additional shareholder value by expanding our addressable markets.”
More details available in Generac's 4Q 2020 earnings release
