Boat maker Brunswick will have low inventory through the end of 2021 as it continues to see strong sales growth and consumer demand, Brunswick CEO David Foulkes told CNBC on Friday.
While Foulkes said he expected Brunswick to meet its production forecast for 2021, he noted that the company is still recovering from pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and labor shortages.
“We are producing as much as possible, but we will still find ourselves in very low inventory levels through the end of this year,” Foulkes said on CNBC’s “Power Lunch”. He said it will likely take more than two years to meet retail demand and fill the industrial pipeline at current production rates.
“We ended last year with unusually low inventory levels and it’s obviously a very seasonal business, so we’re pretty consistent year-round production, but we need inventory to meet the needs of the peak sales season, which is really coming now.” the northern markets, “explained the executive.” So it is more about an inventory transport that was created last year in combination with an enormous retail demand.
He said Brunswick was “creative” in getting the manpower it needed and was producing “very efficiently and very effectively” to deal with the various disruptions.
According to Foulkes, Braunschweig is seeing strong sales growth, with the company’s total sales increasing by more than 40% in the first quarter. He found that the engine business now accounts for more than 45% of the US market. The boat manufacturer is the largest recreational boating company in the world with 17 brands including Mercury Marine, Boston Whaler and Freedom Boat Club.
Boat sales skyrocketed over the past year during the pandemic as many Americans became accustomed to flexible work environments that allowed people to spend more time outdoors, and demand continued to grow in the first half of 2021. Sales of boats, marine products, and services in the U.S. hit a 13-year high in 2020 to $ 47 billion, up 9% year over year, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.
Dealers have since struggled to maintain their stocks and manufacturers are expanding their manufacturing capacity to meet consumer demand.