Market
Who we sell through
Four facts about the companies between us and the customer. Everything here is public and sourced.
Two companies are most of the market
Wholesalers are the shelf. They stock our products and sell them on to installers and contractors. Two groups dominate Europe.
Sonepar sold 33.6 billion euros in 2025[1]. Rexel sold 19.4 billion euros[2]. Both also sell competing brands, and both now sell products under their own name.
Exhibit 1
The third force is not a company, it is a club
Billions of euros. The middle bar is not one company. IMELCO is a group of independent wholesalers who buy together, self reporting 24 billion euros of combined turnover and a 16 percent share[3]. We negotiate with its members one country at a time, and they compare what we offered.
Half the biggest distributor's business is already online
Digital is not a project any more. Sonepar reports 45 percent of its 2025 European revenue as digital[1].
In November 2025 Schneider Electric said publicly that it had stopped trying to sell direct on the web, and would help partners sell instead[4].
What decides whether our product appears when a customer searches a partner's site is the quality of our product data, not our own website.
What this research got wrong before it got it right
Three corrections, kept on purpose. They show the checking, and each one would have led to a wrong conversation with a partner.
- Technische Unie belongs to Sonepar, not to Rexel. Majority owned since 1982, wholly owned since 2000[5].
- Elektroskandia in Sweden no longer exists under that name. It became Sonepar Sverige on 6 May 2025[6].
- Three buying groups named in the original brief could not be confirmed in any public source, in English, German or French. They are recorded as a gap, not filled in.
Sources
- Sonepar, record 2025 results, 33.6 billion euros of sales and 45 percent digital share of European revenue. https://www.sonepar.com/en/newsroom/sonepar-sets-new-records-in-2025-with-33-6-billion-sales-and-market-leadership-194818 (published 24 March 2026, accessed 27 July 2026)
- Rexel, fourth quarter sales and full year 2025 results, group sales of 19,414.6 million euros. https://www.rexel.com/en/q4-sales-fy-2025-results (published 11 February 2026, accessed 27 July 2026)
- IMELCO, international cooperation of independent electrical wholesalers, self reported combined turnover and market share. https://imelco.com (accessed 27 July 2026)
- MasterB2B, interview with Schneider Electric on stepping back from direct web selling toward marketplace enablement. https://masterb2b.com/resources/the-one-reason-your-company-should-not-sell-online-and-many-why-it-should/ (published 24 November 2025, accessed 27 July 2026)
- Technische Unie and Sonepar Netherlands corporate pages. https://www.technischeunie.nl and https://www.sonepar.nl (accessed 27 July 2026)
- Sonepar Sverige, formerly Elektroskandia, rebrand announcement. https://www.sonepar.se (published 6 May 2025, accessed 27 July 2026)