A softening market and higher costs threaten sales for leading fabricators
From glassmagazine.com by Nora Dick and Rachel Vitello on March 18, 2025
Above: Photo courtesy of Tecnoglass
Top Glass Fabricators, and likely glass fabricators more broadly, are facing challenging times. Only 32% of reporting companies this year said they experienced higher sales in 2024, compared to 70% the previous year, a milestone in what has been a downward slope in year-over-year gains since 2022.
The number of reporting companies included in the Top Glass Fabricators report is not static and shifts from year to year. Even so, this statistic seems significant, especially given other pain points shared by fabricators.
Perhaps in response to a tougher market, the industry consolidation noted in last year’s report has continued. Trulite Glass & Aluminum Solutions acquired three fabricator companies within the last year, all of them long-time Top Glass Fabricators: American Insulated Glass, Insulite and Dependable Glass Works. Trulite, backed by private equity firm Truelink Capital, indicated in the announcement of Dependable’s acquisition that the company was employing an “active M&A strategy focused on acquiring high-quality businesses that expand our geographic reach and enhance our product offering.”
Top Glass Fabricator Glaz-Tech also acquired Tomakk Glass Partners, a fabricator based in Shreveport, Louisiana, which allows the West Coast-based Glaz-Tech to expand its market reach in the Southeast and broaden its product mix, including energy-efficient glass products.
After a year of uncertainty in markets and elections, companies also saw the costs of raw materials increase in August from major float manufacturers, the timing of which surprised several fabricators, as reported in Glass Magazine. According to non-seasonally adjusted data pulled at the time of this writing from the Producer Price Index, costs for flat glass rose 2.9% from August 2024 to September of the same year. Overall, costs for flat glass rose 3.3% from the end of 2023 to the end of 2024, based on non-seasonally adjusted data pulled in February of this year.
Increased prices have not aided the slowing market, and inflation rates are likely to continue rising if and when the business cycle picks up again, according to Connor Lokar of ITR Economics, who presented at last year’s GlassBuild. “We’re projecting inflation will be back at 3% to 5% as we move through the rest of the 2020s. … [Glass industry companies] need to make a plan in their business with how they’re going to deal with higher inflation and interest rates,” Lokar says.
Responses from this year’s survey respondents note the difficult position of trying to grow their business during softening demand, all while costs increase. “The market slowed, yet prices for raw materials, equipment, etc., all increased and are continuing to increase,” says Max Fisher, vice president, Eastern Glass Resources.
The end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 have seen a higher-than-average amount of closures across the glass industry, including Top Glass Fabricator Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope, which closed a Los-Angeles area facility at the end of December 2024. Vetrotech North America, a specialty glass fabricator, also ended North American operations at the start of 2025.
The market insights for this report are compiled from survey responses completed by Top Glass Fabricators.
Top Glass Fabricators Report
Visit the World of Glass and download the Fabricator Database
For more information about the North American fabrication market, visit our updated fabricator map with newly-added recycled glass locations. The map’s database was updated in March 2025 and is available in the National Glass Association store. Free to NGA members.
Top Glass Fabricator Spotlights
Top Glass Fabricators Spotlight 💡 Tvitec | Cricursa is headquartered in Spain and fabricates glass such as curved, protective, high performance, bird-friendly and many more! The full Top Glass Fabricators list and report will be available this April.
Top Glass Fabricators Spotlight 💡 Vitrum is headquartered in British Columbia. Some specialty glass that they fabricate includes protective, high performance, bird-friendly, digitally-printed glass and more! The full Top Glass Fabricators list will be available on Glass Magazine this April. Leading up to its release, we will continue to spotlight some of this year’s top fabricators!
Top Glass Fabricators Spotlight 💡 General Glass International, headquartered in New Jersey, is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year! Also for 2025, GGI is planning on focusing on its sales and marketing initiatives. GGI has also installed a new Dip-Tech DX-3 direct-to-glass printer, enhancing efficiency and production speed while expanding its capacity for increased output. The full Top Glass Fabricators list will be available on Glass Magazine this April. Leading up to its release, we will continue to spotlight some of this year’s top fabricators!
Top Glass Fabricator Spotlight 💡 @agnoraglass, based in Ontario, Canada, manufactures tempered, insulating, laminated, decorative and jumbo glass, among other specialty types. Pictured here are AGNORA employees at work in their facilities. The Top Glass Fabricators list will be announced April 8, so keep an eye out!
26% Added shifts
19% Reduced shifts
32% Report higher sales
Sales and Challenges
Growth slowed significantly in 2024 based on leading fabricator survey responses. Only 32% of reporting companies said they experienced higher gross sales in 2024, compared to 70% in last year’s report. Perhaps more importantly, the number of fabricators reporting lower year-over-year sales increased by over 20 percentage points this year.
The last time fabricators reported growth this slow was, predictably, in 2020 during the beginning of the pandemic. In the last five years, it was the only other time that more companies reported lower year-over-year sales, 29%, than reported higher year-over-year sales, 26%. Since then, sales growth has recovered to a peak in 2022, when 77% of fabricators reported growing sales.
“Inflation is causing rising costs of labor and everything while the fabricated glass market has remained flat or declined,” says Aaron Day, CEO, AGF Glass.
The unpredictability of costs has made pricing difficult for some fabricators. “Prices have fluctuated so much, and for someone like us who quotes so far in advance it is very difficult to price and hold that price,” says Kevin Roth, CEO, Privacy Glass Solutions.
As costs rise, a plurality of fabricators also report increasing customer expectations for performance and more. “More and higher certifications are being demanded by clients. This requires a lot of resources to be dedicated to every new certification incurred,” says Alejandro Monfort Bernal, export manager, Control Glass Acústico & Solar SL.
“Customer expectations are increasing when it comes to anisotropy, iridescence, rollerwave distortion, bow and warp,” says Sunny Mhay, marketing manager, Glassfab Tempering Services. “ASTM standards are not good enough for our customers—they all want enhanced quality control programs.”
Another indicator of a slowing market, the number of fabricating companies reporting that they reduced shifts this last year doubled from the previous year’s report.
Below: Photo courtesy of Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope
93% Purchased most raw glass in North America
83% Predict expanding glass sizes
Products
Fabricators continue to manufacture glass for all needs and aesthetics. Rates of fabrication for the four main glass types—tempered, decorative, laminated and insulating glass— remained relatively stable, with a 12% uptick in decorative and a 7% decrease in laminated.
This year’s survey solicited information on several new glass types, finding that a significant majority, 75% of respondents, fabricate shower enclosures, 54% fabricate mirror, 54% fabricate digitally printed glass, and 56% manufacture spandrel glass.
While slightly more companies noted that bird-friendly glass continues to be a design trend in installed glass—65% of this year’s respondents compared to 68% the previous year—there was a fairly significant decrease in the number of companies that say they manufacture it, 54% in this survey versus 72% in 2024’s report.
Companies again predicted that jumbo glass sizes will continue to grow in 2025, with 83% predicting larger sizes. The number of companies actually manufacturing what they consider jumbo glass remains flat year over year, at 56%. Without a standard definition of jumbo glass, it remains difficult to exactly gauge how sizes are increasing.
This year’s survey drilled down into rates of protective glazing manufacturing, finding that over a third of respondents manufacture bullet-resistant glazing, and a quarter fabricate ballistic glazing. About the same number of respondents in this year’s survey also said security glass and impact systems were a trend in installed systems this year, 69% compared to 67% in last year’s report.
There was a decrease in the percentage of companies that say they do retrofit work this year. Last year, 62% of companies said retrofit comprised 25% or more of their work, compared to 46% this year. Given the softer market, it will be an important indicator to track for next year’s report.
Below: Employees of Glassfab Tempering Services.
73% Added production capacity
55% Automated some part of manufacturing process
55% Plan to automate in 2025
Investments
Companies continue to plan for growth and for a more robust market to come. More 2025 survey respondents than last year’s report said they increased capacity by adding new locations and new product lines; in both areas, the number of companies that said they added capacity in 2024 increased 10 points year over year.
Fewer companies in 2024 invested in capital equipment year over year—77% compared to 85% in the previous year’s report. Still, about the same number of fabricators said they automated some part of their manufacturing process, and 55% plan to automate in the coming year. Almost the exact number of 2024 respondents that said they would invest in capital equipment did so this past year—77% of fabricator respondents in this year’s report said they invested in capital equipment.
Seventy-six percent of companies plan to invest again in capital equipment in the coming year, a fairly flat year-over-year increase, and 58% plan to launch new product lines in the coming year.
Outside of equipment, companies also invested in their workforce. Last year, 27% of companies said they plan to invest in a training program, and 22% of this year’s respondents again said that they plan to do so in 2025.
Below: The Australian embassy in Washington, D.C. Tvitec | Cricursa contributed fabricated glass to the project.
The List
The 59 companies on this list represent some of the leading fabricators in North America. If you feel that your company belongs on this list, please contact Associate Editor, Rachel Vitello. It is only with continued industry cooperation that we can compile the Top Glass Fabricators report.
For more information about the North American fabrication market, see our updated fabricator map on glass.org/world-glass-map, which now also includes recycled glass locations.
500 million – 1 billion+
An employee of AGNORA at their manufacturing facility.
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