Q2 Mixed Results for Office Furniture Manufacturers

Some mixed Q2 results for two of the key office furniture manufacturers.

 Going Up: - HNI Corporation (parent company of Allsteel Inc. & HON Company) posted a 6.3% increase in Q2 2010 revenues, reporting sales of $398.2M. HNI CEO Stan Askren stated, "I am encouraged by the strengthened demand across our businesses..." Asken went onto say that "office furniture demand improved across the board..."

Going Down: - Knoll Inc. posted a 4.9% decrease in Q2 2010 revenues, reporting sales of $192.3M. Knoll reported that the decrease in sales was experienced across the majority of product lines, with Systems continuing to decline at the largest rate when compared with prior year.

In my personal experience, Knoll has been discounting extremely aggressively over the past 4-5 months, which makes sense in light of their slowing sales. As sales slow, manufacturers increase their "discounting" off list price. This effectively lowers the cost of product to the dealers, who are then pushed to drop their prices to the end-users in the hopes of increasing sales.