CALHOUN, Ga.-Mohawk Industries ended its fiscal year with a far healthier bottom line than last year.
In its fiscal fourth quarter ending on Dec. 31, the floor-covering giant posted a 54.6 percent increase in net income, to $66.4 million—bringing its net income for the year as a whole to $250.3 million, up 43.9 percent. In the quarter, net sales edged up 4.2 percent to $1.4 billion, and for the year, sales rose 2.6 percent to $5.8 billion.
Jeffrey Lorberbaum, Mohawk’s chairman and CEO, credited the strong profit performance to price increases, improvements in productivity, a more favorable sales mix and reduced interest. “In the U.S., we improved our mix as our higher-value products gained greater traction with consumers,” Lorberbaum said. The company’s new premium carpets helped bolster selling prices and margins, in an otherwise flat performance for the Mohawk carpet-and-rug segment.
Lorberbaum also said Mohawk was able to keep operating expenses in line last year. For the fourth quarter, selling, general and administrative expenses rose a scant 1.6 percent in dollars and dropped 48 basis points as a percentage of sales, to 19.1 percent.
Looking ahead, Mohawk said the recovering housing industry and improving employment picture promise growth for the company this year. Other positive signs include a pickup in residential remodeling and what the company anticipates to be a bottoming-out of the European market.