How to Calculate Sales Growth over 3 Years in Excel (2 Methods)

Sales growth over various periods is one of the key performance indicators for most companies. In this article, we will demonstrate how to calculate the sales growth over 3 years in Excel.

Extract Annual Net Sales

Before we can calculate the sales growth over 3 years, let’s extract the Total Sales for the 3 years in question from a dataset of Sales information.

In the dataset below, we have some sales amounts against some dates over 3 years. We’ll group all the sales amounts for each corresponding year using a formula containing the SUMPRODUCT and YEAR functions. Then we’ll use these values to calculate the sales growth over the period they represent.

Steps:

Enter the following formula in cell F5:

=SUMPRODUCT((YEAR($B$5:$B$20)=E5)*($C$5:$C$20))

Press ENTER.

Formula Breakdown

YEAR($B$5:$B$20) returns only the year from the dates in the range $B$5:$B$20.
- Output: {2019;2019;2020;2020;2019;2021;2020;2020;2020;2019;2020;2021;2020;2020;2019;2020}
YEAR($B$5:$B$20)=E5 returns either TRUE or FALSE. If any year in the range $B$5:$B$20 matches with the year stored in E5, it returns a TRUE; otherwise, it returns FALSE.
- Output: {TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE}
(YEAR($B$5:$B$20)=E5)*($C$5:$C$20): E5 represents the year 2019. Thus, YEAR($B$5:$B$20)=E5 returns an array of 1 and 0 values; 1 for the year 2019 and 0 for otherwise. The array of 1 and 0 values is multiplied parallel with the sales amount in the range $C$5:$C$20.
- Output: {63516;56804;0;0;51786;0;0;0;0;66558;0;0;0;0;64819;0}
SUMPRODUCT((YEAR($B$5:$B$20)=E5)*($C$5:$C$20)): Sums all the sales amounts in the array {63516;56804;0;0;51786;0;0;0;0;66558;0;0;0;0;64819;0}.
- Output: $303,483.

Drag down the Fill Handle to cell F7.

We have Net Sales amounts for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Now we’ll use this Year vs Net Sales data table to calculate sales growth over the 3 years.