Kevin J. Wheeler
Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer at A. O. Smith
Thank you, Pat, and good morning, everybody. Our global A. O. Smith team delivered second quarter EPS of $0.73 on a 30% increase in sales, demonstrating solid execution and operational agility despite supply chain and logistic challenges along with rapidly rising material costs.
I am thankful for my fellow A. O. Smith employees, who tirelessly navigated through the pandemic, followed by weather-related production disruptions and continue to navigate supply chain constraints. I appreciate the creativity and the collaboration of our team to find solutions to keep our customers supply with water heating and water treatment products.
Boiler sales grew 35%, driven by strong demand as a result of completed projects carried over from 2020, as well as an active education end market. For reference, our boiler sales were down 15% in the second quarter of 2020, which was negatively impacted by the pandemic.
North America water treatment grew 17%, driven by continued consumer demand for home improvement products, which provide safe drinking water in the home. Our water quality dealers performed particularly well in the quarter and online promotional shopping days also boosted sales.
Consistent with our strategy to build out distribution for North America water treatment, we acquired Master Water Conditioning Corporation. The acquisition supplements our presence in the Northeast, and we are excited to add expertise in local water condition and solutions in this region to our family. Our North America water treatment sales, including this acquisition are expected to be over $200 million in 2021.
Our volumes of US tank residential water heaters increased in the second quarter. We believe the strong demand is a continued result of extended lead times caused by production constraints due to strain in the supply chain, buying in advance of price increases and incremental new home construction.
After our weather-related disruptions in production, which we talked about on our first quarter call, we have seen month-over-month sequential improvement and certain of our suppliers recently noted they see moderation of demand and supply imbalances. But we remain vigilant, as the imbalances are spotty and we expect supply chain challenges to be with us through the remainder of the year.
In response to continued material and logistic cost increases, we recently announced a fourth price increase of between 10% and 12%, effective August 1. In China, sales increased over 26% in local currency driven by growth in each of our major product categories, including electric and gas tankless water heaters and water treatment products, including commercial and replacement filters.
I will now turn the call over to Chuck, who will provide more details on the second quarter, beginning on slide four.