Saint-Gobain is continuing to expand its North American operations even as the US housing market cools, with chief executive Benoît Bazin confirming the French building materials group will keep investing through both capital expenditure and acquisitions. The company is targeting a North American revenue share of close to 30 per cent, more than double the roughly 13 per cent it held before it set out a new growth strategy in 2018.
Saint-Gobain, which reported group revenues of €46.5bn in 2025, has already lifted its North American revenue share to about 22 per cent under that strategy. Since 2020, it has committed $8bn to acquisitions, capital spending and research in the US and Canada, acquiring two listed American companies over that period and, this month, agreeing deals for a North Carolina glass fibre plant and a Vancouver-based concrete chemicals business. North America now generates roughly a third of group profit, a share comparable to Europe, which previously accounted for as much as 60 per cent of earnings; the US has become Saint-Gobain's single largest market, overtaking France.
Bazin said the group takes a long-term view of the North American market, citing its growth prospects and profitability, and indicated the expansion plan would continue regardless of near-term conditions. Mark Rayfield, the company's North America boss, said the business operates and is regarded locally as a North American organisation rather than a French one.
The expansion continues despite a marked pullback in US housing activity. Single-family housing starts last month were down a quarter from early-2022 levels, while existing home sales were more than a third below their pandemic-era peak. The 30-year mortgage rate has risen to 6.58 per cent, up from 2.65 per cent in early 2021. Bazin characterised the current conditions as a dip rather than a collapse in demand, suggesting higher rates were delaying and reshaping construction activity rather than eliminating it.
Housing affordability and construction supply are also under policy pressure in Europe. Finance Gazette has separately examined the European Commission's affordable housing proposals, which address a different market but reflect the same broader tension between housing demand, financing conditions and the capacity to increase supply.
Saint-Gobain also said it had been largely insulated from the disruption caused by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, which added further duties this week, attributing this to its localised production model in the markets where it operates. Rayfield linked the group's positioning to a long-standing focus on product durability and resilience, framed as a commercial rather than a political consideration, even as the Trump administration has scaled back federal climate-related requirements on businesses.
For Saint-Gobain, sustaining the pace of North American acquisitions and capital spending through a soft US housing cycle keeps profitability increasingly weighted toward a market still exposed to elevated mortgage rates and tariff-driven cost uncertainty, a concentration that will shape how the group times and finances its next wave of deals.
