Understanding the Numbers: AHRI Shipment Report Breakdown for January 2026

The following charts provide a look at the past five years of manufacturer shipments of unitary products. Currently, all three product lines are experiencing drastic declines, with air conditioners and heat pumps seeing the most pronounced weakness. These drops come as a consequence of booming growth in the second half of 2024 and beginning of 2025 when distributors ramped up purchases in preparation for the technology transition. Combined growth across all three product lines did not peak until April 2025, so these growth rates may remain under pressure for a bit longer. However, the rolling 3-month growth rates for ACs and heat pumps have begun to improve and should begin to pull the annual rates higher in the coming months. Along with this, the distributor sales-to-inventory ratio as reported by the HARDI Trends Report has made an impressive recovery from the summer of 2025, implying that distributors are successfully working through the inventory they had built up.

Air-Conditioner Shipment Performance

_{Source: AHRI}

There were 210.9K ACs shipped in January, down 39.3% compared to January 2025 and down 31.5% compared to the average number of units shipped in January for the past 3 years. Over the last 12 months, AC shipments have declined by 29.9%, making this the weakest AC shipment performance since the summer of 2016. We typically expect the annual pace of AC shipments to be in the 5.0-5.5-million-unit range. In comparison, the annual rate of Acs shipped through January is 3.97 million units. While the rolling 3-month growth rate appears to have bottomed out, it currently sits at -44% and AC shipments will continue to be under pressure in the months ahead.

Furnace Shipment Performance

_{Source: AHRI}

There were 220.8K furnaces shipped in January, a decrease of 19.5% versus January 2025 and 11.9% below the average number of shipments in January over the last three years. Despite the weaker monthly results, furnace shipments over the last 12 months were still up by 0.6%. That said, the rolling 3-month growth rate fell to -9.2%, suggesting the annual growth rate will likely turn negative in the coming months. Furnace shipments will be under pressure, as predicted in previous monthly updates.

Heat Pump Shipment Performance

_{Source: AHRI}

There were 230K heat pumps shipped in January, a decline of 16.5% versus January 2025, and 12.5% lower than the average number of units shipped in January for the past 3 years. Over the last 12 months, shipments have declined 13.6%. The rolling 3-month growth rate improved 10% from last month, though still negative at -20.7%. The momentum of the decline in the annual growth rate has begun to slow, and we expect it to turn in the coming months steadily following the course of the 3-month growth rate. Heat pump shipments are still tracking at a relatively stable base of 3.6 million units.

Distributor Shipment Performance

_{Source: AHRI, HARDI Unitary Report powered by CoMetrics}

Distributors participating in HARDI’s Unitary Market Program have followed a similar growth trajectory to that of manufacturers. The above chart shows the 12-month growth rate in distributor shipments of ACs, HPs, and furnaces (dark line) versus the 12-month growth rate in manufacturer shipments (orange line) for the same products. While the annual growth rate for both distributors and manufacturers is still negative, the rolling 3-month growth rates not pictured here (-26% for manufacturers through January, and -11% for distributors through February) have bottomed out.

Learn More About Unitary Product Movement

While the AHRI shipment report offers a valuable piece of the puzzle, our Unitary Market Report helps complete the picture. In partnership with CoMetrics, the report offers insights to help HVACR professionals understand their market position and identify areas of growth or loss. Participants gain access to the dynamic Unitary Market dashboards, that allow slicing and dicing data by different product categories, refrigerants, efficiency levels, states, and more.

Participation is a free member benefit and access to the powerful dashboards that bring real-time sales trends to their fingertips is available upon submission. Contact Grace Helser for more information or to schedule a demo of the dashboards or fill out this onboarding form to get started today.