Electrical Wholesaling's editors have been ranking the electrical market's largest distributors since the late 1970s, and acquisitions by national and regional chains have reshaped the ranking every year since then. Over the past few years, acquisition activity has really ramped up. In the past two years, we have reported on well over 20 acquisitions of distributors previously ranked in our listings, and over the past five years we have written articles about the purchases of more than 50 distributors. This surge in acquisitions is the main reason we cut back our annual ranking to 100 companies.
Acquisitions have been a key growth driver for several of the 10 largest electrical distributors in this year's Top 100 ranking, including Wesco International, Pittsburgh, PA; Sonepar USA, North Charleson, SC; Graybar Electric Co., St. Louis, MO; Rexel Holdings, Dallas; Consolidated Electrical Distributors, Irving, TX; Border States Electric, Fargo, ND; and U.S. Electrical Services, Middletown, CT. City Electric Supply, Dallas; and Elliott Electric Supply, Nacogdoches, TX, have also made some acquisitions over the years, but they have relied more on aggressive branch expansion strategies to grow geographic revenues.
The 10 largest electrical distributors have enormous clout in the electrical market, and by our estimates had combined 2023 revenues of more than $75.5 billion. That's approximately 52% of the $145.3 million in 2023 sales that Electrical Wholesaling estimates was sold through U.S. through electrical distributors. As a point of reference, the 100 largest distributors had total estimated sales revenues last year of $95 billion — 65% of revenues.
While providing capsule summaries for what's been happening with all of the companies in our Top 100 ranking is a bit beyond our bandwidth, Electrical Wholesaling's editors hope this e-book provides some interesting insight for you into how 2024's 10 largest electrical distributors have grown to where they are now, and how they may expand further in the coming years.
