NAICS 3255Industry group · 4-digitnational market1 market record

Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing paints, coatings and adhesives. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 263
Under 10 employeesA: 52%
Establishments · USA: 1,681
Employment · USA: 72,447
Payroll · USA: $5.3B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–48532%

5–95220%

10–194015%

20–494216%

50–992811%

100–199135%

200–49931%

500+0—

Of 263 Canadian establishments with employees, 52% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario13351%

Quebec7328%

British Columbia2710%

Alberta176%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 325, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

national competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 325 Chemical manufacturing

Basic chemicals need plant-scale capital. Formulated products — cleaners, coatings, cosmetics — are reachable through contract manufacture, which moves the problem to distribution.

Who sets the price: Commodity markets for basic chemicals; brands and retailers for formulated goods.
The software it runs on: Process ERP, formulation, safety-data and regulatory compliance.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreened

Regional Paint & Coatings MakerOne thing must be true

binding constraint: distribution

Paint is not hard to make. A dispersion mill, tanks and a filling line are modest plant by chemical standards, resins and pigments are bought in, and Canada still has 263 establishments in the group, 52% of them with fewer than ten employees [A]. The cut is the channel. Sherwin-Williams closed 2025 at $23.57B of net sales, up 2.1%, at a 48.8% gross margin [A], and the way it earns that margin is the point: it sells through 4,853 company-operated paint stores across the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, and added 80 net new ones in the year [A]. The painting contractor — the buyer who matters in architectural paint — opens an account at a store a few minutes from the job, gets tinted product the same morning and is billed monthly. The manufacturer owns that counter. What is left to everyone else is the home-centre shelf, which a few national chains control, and the independent dealer, who already carries a national line. A new maker therefore has a product and nowhere to put it; winning a shelf means funding the tint machines, the colour system and the co-op advertising that come with it. And the category gives no help: Sherwin-Williams' store sales rose 3.2% on price, with volume down, so share has to be taken rather than found. Industrial and specialty coatings, where the sale is a specification rather than a shelf, may be a different answer and were not examined. Adhesives were not examined either. The software sold to this branch is screened separately.

NAICS 32556 vendors named11 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Process ERP, formulation, safety-data and regulatory compliance.

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 8

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
Sherwin-WilliamsNYSE:SHW	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	$23.6B	1/8
PPGNYSE:PPG	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	$15.9B	2/8
RPM InternationalNYSE:RPM	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	$7.9B	3/8
AkzoNobelAKZOY	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	—	4/8
Benjamin MoorePrivate	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	—	5/8
Cloverdale PaintPrivate	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	—	6/8
Home Hardware's Beauti-TonePrivate	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	—	7/8
MascoNYSE:MAS	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing3255	—	8/8

Who works here

The occupations employed in Manufacturing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

2 rows sit directly beneath 3255, and 4 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
32551	Paint and coating manufacturing	218	screened at 3255
32552	Adhesive manufacturing	45	screened at 3255

Alongside it, under 325 Chemical manufacturing

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
3251	Basic chemical manufacturing	322	Basic Chemical Plant
3252	Resin, synthetic rubber, and artificial and synthetic fibres and filaments manufacturing	102	Resin & Synthetic Fibre Plant
3253	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing	234	Crop-Protection & Fertilizer Formulator
3254	Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing	428	Life Sciences Commercial Software
3256	Soap, cleaning compound and toilet preparation manufacturing	406	Private-Label Cleaning & Personal Care
3259	Other chemical product manufacturing	440	Custom Resin Compounding (and an unscreened residual)