Electrical distributors are every bit as interested as electrical contractors in new business opportunities like data centers. They are also working to ensure they offer the products and services contractors need to capitalize on what could be a once-in-a-career revenue opportunity.

Trying to make sense of the dizzying increases in prices for wire and cable and the challenges of long lead times for products like switchgear, electrical distributors also sometimes struggle to replace Baby Boomers who are retiring and to recruit, train, and keep younger employees. Owners of many electrical supply houses also have to evaluate opportunities to sell their businesses to larger regional or national firms.

A great way to get a sense of the challenges that keep electrical distributors up at night is to read the annual Top 100 Electrical Distributors ranking published annually by Electrical Wholesaling, EC&M’s sister publication. Below is a summary of trends that surfaced in its research for the 2026 Top 100. The Table below lists the 50 largest electrical distributors. You can access the complete ranking and analysis at www.ewweb.com/data-training/top-100.

2026 business climate

Electrical Wholesaling’s 2026 Top 100 electrical distributors remain quite bullish on their 2026 sales prospects despite economic uncertainty in the overall economy because of the war in Iran, the related spike in inflation, a still-slumbering residential market, and sluggish new office construction in many metros.

Despite these concerns, the average 2025 revenue increase for the 70-plus distributors who provided sales data was +9.3%. Approximately the same number of distributor respondents provided 2026 revenue forecasts — on average, they were expecting a +9.5% increase. Even if you factor in a +2% to +3% boost from inflation, it still puts 2025 sales performance and Top 100 2026 revenue forecasts smack dab in the middle of the industry’s historical annual growth range of 4% to 8%.

Thirteen Top 100 respondents enjoyed 2025 sales performance of better than 20%, led by Eckart Supply, Corydon, Ind. (+55%); Lonestar Electric Supply (+42%); Access Electric Supply, Kent, Wash. (+40.4%); Teche Electric Co., Menomonee Falls, Wis. (+39%); IEWC, New Berlin, Wis. (+30%); and Gross Electric Supply, Toledo, Ohio (+30%).

Several of these companies were expecting stellar years again in 2026, and, in some cases, see revenues growing as much as last year. Chad Coffman, COO, Eckart Supply, expects to match his company’s 2025 55% increase in 2026, and said growth last year was supported by opening four locations and “infrastructure build-out.”

Jackson Electric Supply, Jacksonville, Fla., has been one of the fastest-growing Top 100 distributors in recent years, and that growth is on track for 2026, as Larry Swink, the company’s president and CEO expects 27% revenue growth in 2026 after enjoying 29% growth in 2025.

Trophy jobs

“Jackson increased market share with existing customers,” said Swink. “Market growth was steady with great projects. However, there were not any windfall projects or out of the ordinary opportunities in 2025. We simply gained ground at our larger customers and are becoming the preferred supplier, especially with large lighting and gear orders.”

Swink says Jacksonville’s $1.4-billion “Stadium of the Future” development now being built by the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars is the largest project now underway in the city (see Photo below). It also provided the company with the single largest switchgear order in its history. “We are involved in several large projects nationally as well that are similar in size and scope,” he said.

In just 10 years since its launch, the 28-location Lonestar Electric Supply, Houston, grew sales to roughly $1.7 billion, quite possibly the fastest climb to over a billion dollars in sales for any distributor in the history of the electrical wholesaling industry. CEO Jeff Metzler said in his response that the biggest projects underway in his market area, which now includes all of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Tennessee, are “data centers, data centers, and more data centers.”

Mega-projects dominating the construction market

Data centers were by far the most common large construction projects mentioned by Top 100 execs, but they appear to be spreading into new states like Pennsylvania that had previously not seen comparatively as much activity as states like Virginia, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio. Michael Evanko, VP of Marketing for Fromm, Reading, Pa., said, “Data centers are currently the largest opportunity in eastern Pennsylvania. Many are in the planning stages, working through zoning approvals, etc. The next two years will see massive data center opportunities for distributors in Pennsylvania.”

The New York metropolitan area continues to be one of the most active commercial construction markets in the nation, and several distributors that service this region are enjoying big business from trophy jobs in the area. G&G Electric Supply, New York, is working on the billion-dollar Port Authority bus terminal project and the renovation of JFK Airport. Chelsea Lighting, New York, is supplying lighting solutions to 70 Hudson Yards; 740 8th Ave.; and 383 Madison Ave.

Leon Mowadia, COO, Distribution for Facility Solutions Group, Austin, Texas, said that the company has also worked on several large Manhattan office buildings, Netflix’s studio being built in Fort Monmouth, N.J., and other large commercial projects in Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

With its headquarters near one of the largest clusters of U.S. Naval operations in the world, Jo-Kell, Chesapeake, Va., has serviced U.S. government entities for decades. John Kelly, company president, says one of the largest projects shaping his company’s market is the federal push to expand America’s naval fleet, including proposed next-generation battleships and major shipbuilding investments tied to the Navy’s “Golden Fleet” initiative. Kelly says it’s expected to drive “billions in new construction and industrial infrastructure work across the region.”

As a wire and cable specialist servicing the utility, data center, industrial, and commercial markets, Nassau National Cable, Great Neck, N.Y., is enjoying a diverse array of big project work. Marketing Manager Shikha Gupta said, “The biggest projects on our radar include OpenAI’s Stargate campus in Abilene, Texas; Meta’s Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, La.; and the ongoing hyperscale buildouts across Loudoun County, Va. Closer to our home state of New York, Micron broke ground in Jan. 2026 on its $100-billion megafab campus in Clay, N.Y., which will be the largest semiconductor facility in the United States.”

M&A activity

Although there weren’t as many distributor mergers and acquisitions over the past 18 months by Top 100 electrical distributors, several of the M&As were quite notable because the acquired companies were regional power players and filled some important gaps in market coverage for the acquirers. For instance, Rexel USA, Dallas, acquired two solid regional distributors in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area and a big automation distributor in the Chicago metropolitan market. It acquired Revere Electric Supply, Mokena, Ill., in Chicagoland; Warshauer Electric Supply, Tinton Falls, N.J.; and Schwing Electrical Supply Corp., Farmingdale, N.Y., in the outer suburbs of the New York metropolitan area.

Graybar acquired one of the largest single distributors in the United States with its purchase of American Electric Supply, Corona, Calif., a big player in the Southern California market, and Border States, Fargo, N.D., acquired WEDCO, Reno, Nev. — perhaps the largest independent distributor in northern Nevada.

Distributors opening new branches to service electrical contractors

While many industry observers are hyper-focused on the consolidation of the industry through acquisition, they often overlook how much the geographic footprint of the electrical wholesaling industry is quietly but steadily growing through branch startups. It seems like each year, top 100 distributor executives report on several dozen new branches now on the map. Some companies, like City Electric Supply, Dallas, are famous for entering a market with a flurry of branch startups, while others, like Elliott Electric Supply, Nacogdoches, Texas, have always used branch startups for their business.

City Electric announced in mid-2025 that during its 2024-2025 financial year it opened up 36 new locations. Elliott Electric Supply opened seven locations in 2025: Baytown, Texas; Stockbridge, Ga.; Lawrence, Kan.; Tampa, Fla. (two locations); Wichita, Kan.; and Las Cruces, N.M.; and closed its location in Stuttgart, Ark. Buddy McCulloch, CEO, Wholesale Electric Supply, Texarkana, Texas, said one of the reasons his company grew a healthy 12% last year was that it opened up five new branches in Rayville, La.; Springdale, Ark.; New Braunfels, Texas; Tulsa, Okla.; and Mayfield Ky.

Inline Electric Supply, Huntsville, Ala., entered new markets through acquisition and branch startups. It acquired Lee Electric Supply in Gallatin, Tenn.; NEC Supply in Columbus, Ga., and G&N Electronics, Decatur, Ala., and opened a location in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

By the numbers

The Top 10 distributors account for an estimated 56% of Electrical Wholesaling’s forecast for $150 billion in sales through distributors of electrical supplies, and the Top 20 distributors shown on this slide account for 64%. It’s pretty amazing to think that the five largest national chains (Wesco, Sonepar, Graybar, Rexel, and Consolidated Electrical) probably account for no less than 46% of total industry sales. In total, the 2026 Top 100 distributors did a combined total of $114.3 billion in revenues — 76% of estimated 2025 industry sales of $150 billion, according to EW’s estimates.

Hopefully, the bullish forecasts for business in the remainder of 2026 will become a reality for both electrical distributors and their most important customers, which typically buy more than 50% of the electrical products sold annually — electrical contractors.