Consumers spent like crazy at Home Depot in 2020

The housing market was one of the few bright spots for the US economy, nearly a year after the company closed. Home Depot became one of the major suppliers and piled up $ 132 billion in sales in 2020, an unprecedented figure.

Home Depot sales in the fourth quarter were up 25% as the home improvement product chain continues to meet the demand from Americans trapped at home by the pandemic and students attending classes remotely. Many families came to the conclusion that larger houses, or at least other houses, should be the answer in 2020, causing house prices to skyrocket and making the housing market look resilient.

On Tuesday, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index, which tracks house prices in 20 US cities, showed an increase of 10.1% in December from the same month last year. That surpassed the 9.2% jump from the previous month and all other months nearly seven years earlier.

While Home Depot wasn’t the only supplier to meet the demands for hammers, paint, or appliances that accompanied the home boom, the total number of goods sold this year was staggering.

Trying to contextualize that volume, Neil Saunders, GlobalData’s general manager, estimated that in 2020 the equivalent of every person in the United States spent $ 402 on Home Depot

“It’s easy to look at Home Depot’s numbers and attribute their success to the pandemic,” Saunders said Tuesday. “However, keeping three-quarters of growth above 20% is extremely difficult because of the pressure it puts on the entire operation, from supply chains to stores.”

The chain also increased its quarterly dividend by 10% to $ 1.65 a share. Revenues between October and December increased from $ 25.78 billion in the same quarter last year to $ 32.26 billion. The figure exceeded the expectations of analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research, who forecast $ 30.66 billion.

Sales at the chain’s stores around the world that have been open for at least a year – a key indicator of retail business health – were up 24.5%. In terms of stores in the United States, the number was up 25%.