United States.
In its financial results for the year and fourth quarter ended December 31, 2015, The Sherwin-Williams Company net sales in Latin America decreased by 18.2% to $631.0 million for the year and decreased from 23.5% to $158.7 million in the quarter primarily due to unfavorable changes in the currency conversion rate and lower paint sales volume, securities that were partially offset by increases in selling prices.
In the global framework, the company announced, compared to the same periods in 2014, consolidated net sales increased US$209.8 million, or 1.9%, to US$11.34 billion in the year and increasing from US$35.2 million or 1.4%, to US$2.60 billion in the quarter, mainly due to a higher volume of paint sales in paint stores and consumer groups.
Unfavorable conversion effects changed rates decreased consolidated net sales by 3.3% in the year and 3.6% in the quarter.
Net sales in the Paint Stores Group increased 5.2% to $7.21 billion for the year and increased 5.9% to $1.68 billion in the quarter, primarily due to higher architectural paint sales volume in all end market segments.
Sales of stores open for more than twelve calendar months increased by 4.2% on the year and 5.1% in the quarter during comparable periods last year. The Paint Stores Group segment increased to $1.43 billion for the year from $1.20 million last year and increased to $316.1 million in the quarter from $247.5 million last year, primarily due to higher paint sales volume.
Segment profits as a percentage of net sales increased in the year to 19.9% from 17.5% in 2014 and increased in the quarter to 18.9% from 15.6% last year.
