Nick St. Denis, USGlass magazine’s research editor, just completed two major studies—one of the contract glazing industry and the other of the manufacturer/fabricator segment. While summary results of both with be available during the upcoming GANA Building Envelop Contractors (BEC) Conference, Nick has been kind enough to delve into the contract glazier research in two areas that are of intense interest to me. They most likely will be to you, too.

Here are my conclusions in those areas, based on a review of the data:

1. Gargantuan Growth: The size of the contract glazing market has increased tremendously over the last five years. In fact, it’s nearly doubled. And as we all know, a pie that is twice as large as it was five years ago is a hardy one.  Of course, what’s not reflected in these numbers is the fact that the market lost more than one-third and nearly half its volume during the height of the great recession and much of this new work had been scheduled but put on hold or cancelled at that time.

2. The squeeze in the middle: Mid-sized companies do not seem to have capitalized on the post-recession upturn as much as the extremely large or small companies.

3. Room at the top: The top five contract glazing companies continue to get larger relatively as well, increasing their market share by just under 10 percent. Most of that growth came from their next 15 competitors, which lost 8 percent market share. The next 30 companies lost three percent. One other interesting item to note: The market share of the top five companies is larger than the next 35. The top five companies now do more than half (54 percent) of the largest jobs and that percentage has continued to rise every year since 2014.

It’s a fascinating report and I thank Nick for allowing me to preview it. By the way, if the contract glazing industry is your focus, there is no better educational event to attend this year than the BEC Conference, coming up February 6-8 in Las Vegas. We both hope to see you there.
Deb