Wholesale Global Market Report 2021: COVID-19 Impact and Recovery to 2030

Major companies in the wholesale market include McKesson Corporation; AmerisourceBergen Corporation; Cardinal Health Inc; C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc and Arrow Electronics Inc.

The global wholesale market is expected to grow from $45025.1 billion in 2020 to $49371.76 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7%. The growth is mainly due to the companies rearranging their operations and recovering from the COVID-19 impact, which had earlier led to restrictive containment measures involving social distancing, remote working, and the closure of commercial activities that resulted in operational challenges. The market is expected to reach $64334.41 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 7%.

The wholesale market consists of sales of goods and related services to ultimate users by entities (organizations, sole traders and partnerships) that sell wholesale merchandise including the outputs of agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and certain information industries, such as publishing. The wholesale trade comprises purchasing, storing and selling merchandise to retailers or to other wholesalers and providing related services such as breaking bulk. This industry includes wholesale agents and brokers who arrange the purchase or sale of the goods owned by others, on a fee or commission basis. The wholesale industry also includes business to business electronic markets and platforms and agents that facilitate wholesale trade that do not own or handle the products they sell. The wholesale market is segmented into non-durable goods merchant wholesalers; wholesale electronic markets and agents and brokers and durable goods merchant wholesalers.

Asia Pacific was the largest region in the global wholesale market, accounting for 51% of the market in 2020. North America was the second largest region accounting for 16% of the global wholesale market. Middle East was the smallest region in the global wholesale market.

The use of analytics in the wholesale trade market is enhancing supply chain efficiencies by anticipating future demand of the customer. Predictive analytics uses historic data to predict future events. Some of the applications where wholesale trade companies use predictive analytics are to project profitability, model business scenarios and improve marketing campaigns. For instance, HD Smith, a pharmaceutical wholesale distributor, implemented analytics to streamline their operations, manage their inventory and perform profitability analysis.

The outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has acted as a massive restraint on the wholesale market in 2020 as supply chains were disrupted due to trade restrictions and consumption declined due to lockdowns imposed by governments globally. COVID 19 is an infectious disease with flu-like symptoms including fever, cough, and difficulty in breathing. The virus was first identified in 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province of the People’s Republic of China and spread globally including Western Europe, North America and Asia. Steps by national governments to contain the transmission have resulted in decline in manufacture and trade of non-essential goods and an overall decline in economic activity with countries entering a state of 'lock down' and the outbreak is expected to continue to have a negative impact on businesses throughout 2020 and into 2021. However, it is expected that the wholesale market will recover from the shock across the forecast period as it is a 'black swan' event and not related to ongoing or fundamental weaknesses in the market or the global economy.

The wholesale market is expected to benefit from steady economic growth forecasted for many developed and developing countries. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the global GDP growth will be 3.3% in 2020 and 3.4% in 2021. Recovering commodity prices, after a decline in the historic period is further expected to be a significant factor driving economic growth. The US economy is expected to register stable growth during the forecast period. Additionally, emerging markets are expected to continue to grow slightly faster than the developed markets in the forecast period. Greater economic growth is likely to drive public and private investments, joint ventures, foreign direct investments in the end-user markets, thereby driving the market during forecast period.