Product and Service
Companies included in household goods sector in household goods& service industry primarily are manufacturers and marketers of consumer household products and personal care products.
Demand for Product and Service
As indicated by typical sales data, the demand for household goods has been strong and growing in the past several years. It seems that sales performance of companies have been related to lowering price/costs.
The Sector
Sector’s current, trend, causes behind trend, and future
Current and Trend
- Generally, the demand for household goods and personal care products has been growing quickly in North America area as indicated by the increase in sale volume of companies in this sector in the past several years.
- Competition has been intensive. Companies have managed to lower costs to enable competitive price and obtain more market shares and as a result the selling price present downward trend.
- Sales from international market have increased quickly.
Causes behind the trend
The factors behind the trend in this sector include general economic and demographic changes, growth in household income, realizations of health life, and concentration of industry.
Industry Future
Supported by favourable factors, demand in this sector may continuingly go up .
Numbers
General Financial Performance of Companies In the Sector
It seems that there has been a growing demand from US market for household goods and personal care products. This has been reflected by the continuingly increasing sale volume since 2014 (annual average growth rate of 4%). In addition, demand has grown faster pace in international market.
However, we have seen an increasing pressure on price as a result of competition among brands and of unfavourable climate in retail industry. And this has been reflected by the decreasing selling price or product mix’s shifting to power price products.
As a result of lower products costs (material costs) and increased sales, the typical companies’ gross margin has gone up to about 45% in 2017 and the typical operating margin up to about 19% with a SG&A as percentage of sales of about 25%.
The typical average stock Price/cash flow ratio is: 27(interest/EBI ratio of 11%) and stock price/sales ratio is about 3.
