The sale of electrical products through electrical distributors will increase by nearly $10 billion next year, according to the forecast from Electrical Wholesaling’s 2007 Market Planning Guide. The annual industry benchmark estimates U.S. sales for 2007 at $93.3 billion, a 10.5 percent increase from its 2006 estimate of $84.4 billion.

Appearing each year in the November issue of Electrical Wholesaling magazine, the Market Planning Guide (MPG) provides electrical-distributor sales forecasts at a national level as well as for nine regions and all 50 states. The MPG also provides industry multipliers to help electrical wholesalers estimate sales potentials for their companies by customer segment and product type.

The forecasts are based upon responses to the magazine’s annual Market Planning Guide survey, which is mailed each year to the more than 3,000 Electrical Wholesaling distributor subscribers with the title of chairman, president or vice president. The survey asks for the previous year’s final sales results, sales predictions for the
current year and predictions for the following year. It also asks respondents how sales for the first six months of the current year compared with the first six months of the previous year.

When comparing the first six months of 2005 with the first six months of 2006, 81.2 percent of respondents reported electrical-product sales increased, 7.3 percent said sales had decreased, and 11.5 percent reported flat sales. On average, U.S. electrical distributors saw sales surge 14.4 percent in the first six months of this year when compared with the first six months of 2005.

For the full-year 2006, predictions are tempered a bit to an expected 11.7 percent average increase over 2005. If electrical wholesalers’ 2006 and 2007 forecasts bear true, the industry will see four successive years of double-digit annual revenue growth. Of course, a big chunk of that “growth” will have come by way of commodity price increases.

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Thank-you from the staff of Electrical Marketing.