DNOW Q4 Sales Continue Year-Over-Year Slide, Sequential Gain

The company's year-over-year sales decline continued in Q4, though it showed sequential improvement for a second straight quarter as rig counts have improved.

Houston-based NOW Inc., which does business as DistributionNOW, reported its 2016 fourth quarter and full year fiscal performance on Wednesday, led by a continued sizable decline in year-over-year sales, while they improved sequentially.

DNOW is No. 12 on Industrial Distribution's Big 50 List.

The company posted Q4 sales of $538 million, down 16.5 percent year-over-year, but up 3.5 percent from Q3. The Q4 year-over-year wasn't as severe as the 30.9 percent decline the company had in Q3 and 33.2 percent decline in Q2.

DNOW took a net loss of $71 million in Q4, following losses of $56 million in Q3, $44 million in Q2 and $63 million in Q1.

By geographic segment:

  • U.S. Q4 sales of $379 million (70.4 percent of total) were down 12 percent year-over-year and down 18 percent organically. Sales were up 1.9 percent from Q3.
  • Canada Q4 sales of $73 million were down 8 percent year-over-year and up 9 percent from Q3.
  • International Q4 sales of $86 million were down 35 percent year-over-year and up 6 percent from Q3.

"It is evident that third quarter rig count additions are beginning to translate into production facility construction," said NOW Inc. president and CEO Robert Workman. "Assuming this trend continues into 2017, paired with a new supply chain services award in recent weeks from a large upstream oil and gas operator in the U.S., we are encouraged about 2017."

For the full year, DNOW's total 2016 sales of $2.11 billion were down 30 percent from 2015. The company's 2016 operating loss was $222 million, while its net loss of $234 million was a considerable improvement from a $502 million loss in 2015. DNOW trimmed its 2016 cost of products by 29.7 percent and its warehousing, selling and administrative expenses by 6.8 percent.

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