As Pavement's annual Paving 75 list continues to gain traction, sales of the qualifying contractors continue their upward climb in giant steps.
Last year, the first year the list was comprised of 75 companies (it was 50 before) paving-only sales reached $621,250,562. For 2015 paving-only sales jumped 41% to $875,306,079, indicating possibly a solid paving year but more likely the inclusion of larger operations.
As happened last year when the list grew from 50 to 75 companies, larger paving operations saw fit to participate in the survey, which boosted the paving-only sales totals. And as last year, virtually all the companies are laydown specialists with only two companies (Asphalt Contractors Inc., 43%, and Harding Group, 24%) generating any significant sales from production of hot mix asphalt.
And as we look at these Paving 75, its clear (and consistent from the start of this survey) that these pavers are not one-trick ponies. Only nine of the 75 generate 75% or more of their dollars from paving and of those only two report 100% paving sales.
In fact, paving and sealcoating go very nearly hand-in-hand, with 67 (89%) of the Paving 75 contractors reporting sealcoating sales and 18 of those 67 reported sealcoating generates 25% or more of their sales.
Closely tied to sealcoating is pavement striping so it’s no surprise that 57 companies (76%) reported at least some pavement marking sales, though the extent of the business is broad, varying from 1% (8 companies) to 55% (one company) with most companies reporting single-digit striping sales.
A somewhat interesting result is found in the pavement repair sales category with only 55 companies (73%) reporting sales of pavement repair services, down from 63 companies last year. But it’s unlikely that almost a third of the pavers don’t repair the pavement prior to paving or as a patching option. More likely is that these companies group the pavement repair numbers within their paving numbers and are unable to break them out for purposes of this survey. (This has an impact on the Pavement Repair list.)
Not surprisingly, only 12 companies (16%) sweeping sales. And leading the “other” category is concrete work, which 20 companies reporting concrete sales.
Where Pavers Work
All of the Paving 75 contractors indicated they generate sales from parking lot work. And while only a dozen firms reported sales from highway work, 55 companies said they work on roads and 51 companies said they generate sales from driveway work.
The customer mix shows a group of contractors that are comfortable working with almost any type of client.
- 73 Contractors work for commercial/industrial clients
- 63 work for multi-family housing clients
- 52 work for single-family residential clients
- 46 work for municipal clients
Contractors who participated in the 2015 Top Contractor survey can expect to receive the annual analysis and report in August.
Contractors who miss out on this year’s report can participate in the 2016 Top Contractor Survey which will be open online from January 1 through April 30, 2016.
