You can use the following formula in Excel to calculate the sales growth between two different periods:
=(B3-B2)/B2
This formula calculates the sales growth, assuming the value in cell B2 represents the value for the first sales period and the value in cell B3 represents the value for the second sales period.
The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.
Example: How to Calculate Sales Growth in Excel
Suppose we have the following dataset that shows the total sales made by some company during 10 consecutive years:
Suppose we would like to calculate the sales growth for each year.
To do so, we can type the following formula into cell C3:
=(B3-B2)/B2
We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column C:
Next, we can display the sales growth values as percentages by highlighting the cell range C3:C11, then clicking Percentage from the Number Format dropdown menu in the Number group on the Home tab:
Each of the sales growth values will now be displayed as percentages:
From the output we can see:
- Sales grew by 11.54% from 2010 to 2011.
- Sales grew by 31.03% from 2011 to 2012.
- Sales declined by 5.26% from 2012 to 2013.
And so on.
If you’d like to visualize these values, you can highlight the cell range C3:C11, then click the Insert tab along the top ribbon, then click the icon titled Cluster Column within the Charts group:
The following bar chart will appear that displays the sales growth values by year:
This allows us to quickly see which years had positive vs. negative sales growth.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:
How to Create a Sales Forecast in Excel
How to Extrapolate Data in Excel
How to Calculate YTD (Year to Date) Values in Excel
