Revenues for the U.S. wholesale distribution industry in 2016 were essentially flat compared with 2015, as manufacturing continued to lag and the strong U.S. dollar offset strength across construction sectors, according to the newly released 2017 Competitive Landscape for Wholesale Distribution.

Based on a year-to-date comparison through November 2016, most of the industry's subsectors experienced a 1- or 2-percent change, with the exception of Petroleum (-13 percent), Metals (-12 percent) and Farm Products (-6 percent).

The construction subsectors posted the strongest gains last year, led by Lumber (7 percent), Furniture (6 percent) and Hardware (4 percent).

But 2017 is projected to be a good year for all subsectors, with MDM Analytics forecasting all subsectors to post revenue growth and overall industry revenues to increase 6.6 percent in 2017.

The biggest gains this year are projected to occur for wholesalers of Oil and Gas Products, Building Material and Construction, and Hardware, Plumbing and Heating Equipment Supplies.

The MDM Competitive Landscape for Wholesale Distribution provides a snapshot for the $5.3-trillion wholesale distribution industry in the U.S. at the beginning of 2017, including economic benchmarks and segmentation of its vertical product channels.

Fourteen of the industry's 19 sectors are broken out to provide more detail, including key trends and a market share estimate for the distributors in each (except for building materials/construction due to unavailability of data).

Distribution executives, channel managers, and financial analysts and service providers use the report for sector-specific financial benchmarks, key trends, market share of the top distributors and multisector competitive analysis and differentials.

Learn more about the 2017 Competitive Landscape for Wholesale Distribution by clicking here.