Chicago - The Window and Door Manufacturers Association (WDMA) has released the WDMA 2015 Window and Entry Door U.S. Market Study. This report provides data and insights needed to understand the industry's performance, key trends, and future direction. The report is based on extensive industry input for product shipments in 2014 and was prepared, researched and analyzed by Metrostudy, a Hanley Wood company, and the Virginia Tech Center for Housing Research (CHR).

This report delivers timely information on residential entry door, and residential and light commercial window market trends and product relationships; historic data for 2012 and 2013, and forecast data for 2015 through 2017. Forecasts are based on projections of construction activity as of May 2014.

Shipments of residential windows increased 13% in 2014 with over 50 million units shipped across the country. This was a stronger rate than the 10% growth observed in 2013. Annual growth in 2014 was led by the Midwest which saw an increase of 18% to 11.83 million residential window shipments.

Shipments of side-hinged entry doors increased by 13% in 2014 which was double the growth rate of 6% observed in 2013. The South saw the largest volume of side-hinged entry doors in 2014 at 4.26 million units, but this represented a weak growth of only 1%

Nationally, vision area of commercial windows posted a 3% increase in 2014 to 97.5 million square feet. The South showed the largest increase of 33% to 33.35 million square feet.

The WDMA 2015 Window and Entry Door U.S. Market Study is available to purchase online in the WDMA bookstore at www.wdma.com. The WDMA Architectural Door U.S. Market Study will be released in early June.