tED magazine’s exclusive Baird research for the third quarter of 2026 shows revenue beat expectations for the quarter, with a forecast for moderate growth again in the fourth quarter. The research also shows remains a tailwind for both electrical and Datacomm.
The research included responses from 27 distributor respondents totally more than $12 billion in annual revenue.
Revenue grew 13.5% in Datacomm for the quarter compared to the third quarter of 2025, while revenue for electrical grew 10.9%. Expectations were for a 10.5% increase in revenue for Datacomm and 7.8% for electrical. Our supply chain’s numbers beat the average for overall distribution product lines, which came in at an increase of 8.3% for the third quarter.
Datacomm maintained a steady 13.3% growth for all three months of the third quarter, while electrical revenue grew 10.6% in July, 11.3% in August, and 11.2% in September.
One respondent to Baird said, “Very strong growth in construction and industrial markets. Data Centers continue to provide the largest opportunity for growth.”, while another response added, “Data Center and related spending seems to be impacting many aspects of our business. Not just “obvious” data center customers, but traditional customers now working in the data center space.”
While revenue increased, so too did pricing. Our exclusive Baird research shows pricing for electrical is up 3.7% in the third quarter, and up 0.4% in Datacomm. Breaking that down by geography, the Northeast saw the most significant pricing increase at 6.6%, which Canada had the lowest at 2%.
A key driver to price increase is copper. NAED recently launched its new “Copper Calculator”, which provides an effective analysis by separating commodity-driven price effects before drawing conclusions about volume, market share, end-market exposure, or operating performance.
The price of copper weighed heavily in the comments from distributor respondents, including, “Pricing continues to be influenced by increases in copper and other commodities. In Q3 margins we positively impacted by increase in copper. We expect this to continue into Q4.” Another respondent reported, “Commodity pricing and data centers driving growth. Commercial and residential business is challenged.” Three respondents told Baird they are working to pass off price increases by suppliers.
Predicted growth for the fourth quarter of 2026 remains solid, with distributors expecting a 7.8% growth in electrical and an 8.6% growth in Datacomm. The forecast across all distribution products is 6.6% growth, making our supply chain above the average. Data centers remain a key driver, with residential and commercial construction still lagging.
“Data centers are consuming all material and making it very hard for traditional construction projects to stay on time due to product shortages and extended lead times,” one respondent reported. Another said, “Lead times are stretched, vendors having difficult time keeping up with datacenter demand which is negatively impacting non-datacenter orders. lots of supplier M&A, poor visibility post mid-term elections.” Another said the priority remains data centers. “Anybody that’s doing business with data centers is prioritizing the data center business over their other business.”