The Fastenal Company, Winona, MN, (Nasdaq: FAST), No. 7 on MDM's list of top industrial distributors, reported sales for the third quarter of $858.4 million, an increase of 7 percent compared to the same period a year ago.
Daily sales to manufacturing customers grew 4.7 percent during the quarter, daily sales to non-residential customers grew 3.9 percent and fastener sales grew 1 percent. Profit increased 9.2 percent to $119.4 million.
For the first nine months, sales were $2.5 billion, an increase of 5.7 percent compared to the same period a year ago. The increase came primarily from higher unit sales, which primarily resulted from increases at older store locations, and was not meaningfully impacted by the introduction of new products or services with the exception of the FAST Solutions initiative which stimulated faster growth with a subset of customers. Nine-month profit increased 8.6 percent to $349.4 million.
On September 30, Fastenal had 2,686 stores. During the first nine months of 2013, the distributor opened 44 new stores, an increase of 1.7 percent since December 2012.
On September 30, Fastenal operated 32,248 FAST Solutions industrial vending machines. During the first nine months, the company installed 11,153 new machines, an increase of 52.9 percent since December 2012. Fastenal had 16,529 employees, an increase of 9.1 percent since December 2012.