The Sparkle of the 4th: How the Fireworks Industry Continues to Boom

Last year, around this same time, we ran a Scholar query on the fireworks industry and walked away genuinely surprised by what we found. A sector most people assume is frozen in time, sparklers and Roman candles unchanged since their grandparents lit them, turned out to be quietly absorbing AI, drone technology, and serious institutional capital. Twelve months later, we went back to Scholar to see what had actually changed, and the answer is a lot.

The global fireworks market sits between $2.9 billion and $3.5 billion today (from a $3 billion industry last year), and Scholar’s research projects that climbing to somewhere between $4.1 billion and $6.2 billion by the mid-2030s. The US market alone is valued between $460 million and $952.8 million, and Americans burned through 143,000 tons of fireworks in 2024.

What’s interesting is how fragmented the industry remains even at that scale. No single US retailer controls more than 5% of the market, so this isn’t a story about one or two giants squeezing everyone else out. It is four very different family-run companies, each running its own playbook, fighting for share in its own lane.

What Are the Companies Actually Running This Industry?

Scholar’s competitive profile work surfaced four names in North America that are worth knowing, and what struck us is how different their strategies are despite all four families having run these businesses for generations.

• Phantom Fireworks leads on the consumer and e-commerce side, generating somewhere between $145.8 million and a full billion in revenue, depending on the year. The Zoldan family built out serious digital infrastructure, ERP systems, AI and AR pilots, omni-channel retail, and it paid off during COVID with a sales surge north of 115%. With over 80 permanent locations and roughly 2,000 temporary stands across 15 to 17 states, Phantom has built a retail footprint that’s hard to compete with on convenience alone.
• TNT Fireworks, run by the Anderson family since 1920, plays the volume game. Over 40,000 retail outlets, 5,500-plus seasonal stands, and 25 supercenters make TNT the largest distributor in the country by sheer reach. Their 2023 acquisition of American Fireworks extended that national footprint, and their fundraising stand model has quietly become one of the more durable distribution strategies in the industry.
• Zambelli Fireworks, founded in 1893 and now in its fourth generation under the Zambelli family, went a different direction entirely, focusing on professional displays rather than consumer retail. They run over 1,600 events a year and have pushed into drone and pyro hybrid shows, AI-assisted choreography, and large-scale arena spectacles. They won the 2024 GlobalFest Championship and ran the drone and fireworks combination for a Pirates MLB game, which says something about where this company is placing its bets.
• Atlas Fireworks went the opposite direction from Zambelli, selling off its professional division entirely to focus on consumer retail in New Hampshire. The Pelkey family’s 2026 acquisition of Sparks Fly deepened that regional focus rather than chasing national scale.

How Does Drone Technology Impact Traditional Fireworks?

According to the report, drone light shows are growing at a 15.3% compound annual rate, against roughly 4% growth for traditional fireworks globally. And as the technology becomes more accessible, drone displays are emerging as potentially stronger competitors to conventional pyrotechnics.

That gap is real, and it raises an obvious question. Are drones slowly outshining fireworks? Interestingly, drones and fireworks are showing up in the same show rather than one replacing the other. Meaning, event organizers are combining drones and fireworks to create visually striking hybrid shows that offer added creative flexibility and environmental advantages.

Zambelli’s hybrid pyro-drone displays are a good example. Drones bring eco-friendly, reusable, digitally programmable visuals that can operate where traditional fireworks are restricted, while explosive pyrotechnics still deliver a physical impact drones can’t replicate. Perhaps the smart money in this sector isn’t betting against fireworks but betting on companies that can run both technologies in the same night sky.

Where Is the Real Growth Opportunity for Investors?

Latin America is the most obvious geographic target, with Brazil, Mexico, and Guatemala together comprising 63% of total industry volume in the region. The opportunity leans toward value over volume here. Companies that can navigate strict regulatory environments and compliance-driven professional markets stand to capture premium pricing rather than chasing market share in what is still a fairly informal economy in parts of the region.

Eco-friendly and low-impact fireworks are another clear growth area. Roughly 18% of new product launches globally now fall into this category, pushed along by tightening environmental and noise regulations in urban centers across North America and Europe. Companies figuring out biodegradable and emission-controlled formulations now are getting ahead of regulatory pressure instead of scrambling to catch up with it later.

Artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) integration is showing up everywhere in this industry. Companies are using AI to optimize display choreography, synchronize timing across hundreds of individual launches, and predict hazardous conditions before they become safety incidents. Real-time supply chain analysis and digital twin modeling are starting to show up in how the more sophisticated operators plan their work.

What Risks Should Dealmakers Be Watching?

Between 65% and 90% of the industry’s supply still comes from Chinese manufacturers, so geopolitical tension or trade disruption could hit margins fast across the entire sector. Regulatory pressure on environmental and noise standards keeps tightening, and in some jurisdictions that’s already cutting usage by up to 25%. E-commerce is also lowering the barrier to entry for new competitors, which adds pressure on established retailers who’ve leaned on physical footprint as a moat.

Patent activity across the major players is thinner than you’d expect for an industry this large. Phantom holds at least one patent, and TNT holds fifteen, though the specifics aren’t detailed in public filings. A 2024-2025 patent dispute over electronic firing systems, Titan International Technologies versus Cobra Firing Systems and Phantom Fireworks, was resolved in favor of the defendants, which gives some clarity on how electronic display technology gets treated going forward. Beyond that, the real competitive defense in this industry leans more on brand than technical IP. Trademarks like TIKI, GHOST, and XL are being actively defended in court across the industry, a sign that companies are protecting their names and trade dress more aggressively than they’re protecting underlying technology.

How Did We Pull This Report Together So Fast?

This entire analysis came from a single Scholar query. What used to take weeks of manual research, contacting industry sources, digging through trade publications, and piecing together fragmented public data, Scholar assembled into a structured, cited report covering competitive profiles, market sizing, IP landscape, growth vectors, and risk factors. Every figure in this piece traces back to a verifiable source, which matters in an industry where reliable data on family-owned, often privately held companies is genuinely hard to find.

This is the kind of research usually reserved for large-cap public companies with armies of equity analysts covering them. Scholar brings that same caliber of research to an industry most research departments never bother looking at closely, fireworks included. (In fact, you can access our Scholar research report on the fireworks industry here.)

That broader mission now extends beyond one-off research. Cyndx recently launched its complimentary Company and Industry Intelligence Report series, a growing library of deep-dive reports built using Scholar and made freely available on our website. Designed to bring equity analyst-quality intelligence to the often-overlooked middle market, the series reflects the same core thesis behind Scholar itself: that reliable, institutional-grade research should not be limited to large-cap public companies.

This 4th of July, as the sky lights up across the country, remember that behind every burst of color sits a surprisingly sophisticated business and an industry evolving faster than most people watching the show would ever guess.

Want to know what Scholar can uncover for your next deal? Contact us now.