W.W. Grainger Inc., the big public distributor of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products, reported a mixed bag of financial results for the first quarter ended March 31.
Overall, it was another strong quarter of growth online for Grainger, but total sales only grew moderately and business conditions in Canada have been slow to recover, the company says.
For the first quarter, total sales grew year over year by 2.8% to $3.084 billion from $3.001 billion in the first quarter of 2020. Net earnings were $238.0 million compared with $173.0 million in the first quarter.
The strongest growth came in Grainger’s online-only channel, which consists of ecommerce operations Zoro.com and MonotaRO.com.
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