Modern Distribution Management has released its annual ranking of the top wholesale distribution companies in North America for 2018 in 14 sectors, sponsored by Epicor. W.W. Grainger, Inc., Lake Forest, IL, is No. 1 on the Top 40 Industrial Distributors list, followed by Airgas, Radnor, PA, at No. 2 and HD Supply, Atlanta, GA, at No. 3.
The big news for 2017: Amazon Business makes its first entry on MDM’s 2017 list – with a bang at sixth place – with revenues estimated by MDM of approximately $4 billion in industrial products sales. Another story line for 2017 and continuing in 2018 has been the continued disruption and blending of industrial distribution product sectors with a combination of acquisitions and digital market strategies. Amazon Business leads the charge as a rapidly expanding industrial distributor, leveraging its role as a marketplace for the entire breadth of industrial product sellers in its marketplace.
Sonepar North America, Charleston, SC, is No. 1 on the Top 25 Electrical Distributors list. WESCO International, Pittsburgh, PA, and Graybar, St. Louis, MO, are Nos. 2 and 3, respectively.
New this year, MDM has also created the 2018 Market Leaders Profiles, a 57-page PDF directory that lists detailed company information for each company across the 14 sectors included in our analysis – four-year revenue trend, key executives, number of locations and employees, and highlights for the year. This reference report provides a snapshot of the largest companies defining the competitive landscape of North American industrial distribution channels in 2018. The directory is free for MDM Premium subscribers. Download at www.mdm.com/Market-Leader-Profiles.
All 15 Market Leader lists are also available for free at https://www.mdm.com/marketleaders. The top distributors in the Pharmaceuticals sector will be updated in fall 2017.
Data to determine placement on the Market Leaders lists was collected from the companies, public filings and news releases. Where possible, MDM uses North American revenues to determine ranking order and segments broadline distribution company revenues for individual product sector rankings. For companies not reporting revenue data, MDM estimated rankings based on past reported revenues, average revenue increases within the sectors, data from economic reports and conversations with industry experts. All companies for which revenues were estimated are notated with “N/A” on the lists.
