Sales of domestically produced sawn softwood continued their strength n November, pushing year-end sales to 3,112,044 m3, up a very strong 18.2% on the prior year. The increasing annual sales have been fuelled by growing monthly sales, which peaked in November 2016, at 296,328 m3, up 23.6% on November 2015.
As the chart below shows, after a lull in 2015, year-end sales of sawn softwood have grown continuously throughout 2016.
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The driver for the sector’s performance is clearly and continuously the domestic housing market. Despite that market maturing, the strength in sales appears to be supported by the booming alterations and additions market, discussed elsewhere in this edition of Statistics Count.
While the performance of domestic sales of sawn softwood has been strong over the year, it has also been patchy, on a grade-by-grade basis. We can see this in the chart below.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
Sales of Structural <120 mm grew 3.2% to the year-ended November 2016, totaling a reported 754,913 m3. That was just ahead of the still fast-growing sales of H2F, which over the same period saw sales increase 33.07% and totaled 752,023 m3. When December data is analysed, it will show H2F having overtaken sales of Structural <120 mm.
While there has been considerable commentary about the change in demand from the untreated Structural <120 mm product to the treated structural equivalent H2F, that ignores the main story of their extensive combined sales growth.
Together, these main structural products accounted for 1,506,936 m3 over the year-ended November 2016. That record was 16.2% higher than the year-ended November 2015, underscoring the importance of the housing market for sales of sawn softwood.
While this data provides some insights into the state of the domestic housing market and also the nature of domestic sales of sawn softwood, it also throws up some conundrums.
Why for instance would Fencing sales be down 3.69% and Landscaping down 2.89% over the year-ended November 2016, when Outdoor Domestic sales are up 46.73% over the same period? Surely they are closely enough related products and outputs to operate in similar directions, if not exactly the same.
Regardless of the anomalies at a granular level, sales of domestically produced sawn softwood continue to be strong, and appear to have some growth left, at least on an annualized basis.
