People are spending more to repair their cars, but are not making more repairs than they have to, the chairman of Genuine Parts Co., said in the company's third-quarter earnings call Tuesday.
Thomas C. Gallagher, who is also president and CEO of the Atlanta supplier of replacement auto and industrial parts, said customers are looking for lower-priced products or simply doing necessary repairs. But they are, on average, spending more.
"I think what needs to be done is getting done, but not much more than that, quite honestly," Gallagher said.
Still, he said he expects more business as people who have put off doing repairs see the need to fix their vehicles in the coming months.
Genuine Parts reported record sales and earnings for the quarter, with its largest sales increase coming from industrial and electrical business. The company earned $151.8 million in the period, a 15 percent increase over the third quarter a year ago.
Gallagher said business has not begun to slow down and that there has been no drop-off in demand from industrial customers.
"What we're experiencing in the marketplace is better than what the overall economic indicators would lead us to suspect," he said. "And in talking with our customer sets across all of the businesses, the anecdotal information that we get is that everybody's aware of a potential slowdown, but for right now, they don't see it in the day-to-day activity."
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