Canadian manufacturing sales reached their highest level since January 2025, rising 3.0% to $73.6 billion in March, said the country's statistical agency on Friday.
March's manufacturing sales were a tad lower than the 3.5% month-over-month consensus increase provided by MUFG.
Sales rose in nine of the 21 subsectors, led by the oil and coal product (+22.7%) and transportation equipment (+6.0%) subsectors, writes Statistics Canada in a note. Excluding the oil and coal product subsector, total manufacturing sales rose 0.7% in March.
With the overall gain in March, total manufacturing sales on a year-over-year basis increased 3.5%.
In real terms, total sales increased 1.0% month over month in March, while the Industrial Product Price Index was up 2.4%.
Unfilled orders reached a new record high, rising 2.4% to $121.3 billion in March, pointed out StatsCan. The increase was driven by the aerospace product and parts industry group (+6.1%). Year over year, total unfilled orders were up 8.5% in March.
Total manufacturing inventories increased 1.3% month over month to $124.2 billion in March, on higher inventories of goods in process (+1.8%), raw materials (+1.1%) and finished products (+1.2%).
The inventory-to-sales ratio declined from 1.72 in February to 1.69 in March. This ratio measures the time, in months, that would be required to exhaust inventories if sales were to remain at their current level.
On a quarterly basis, manufacturing sales edged up 0.1% to $214.1 billion in Q1 2026, the third consecutive quarterly increase.