The Market for Propane

Customers: As a 1st Propane® franchise owner, you rent a propane tank 100-1000 gallons in size to a rural home or business. Typically you refill the tank 3-4 times a year, tracking the customer's consumption using the PLATO Tracker delivery routing system.

Not a Fad!: Propane has been in use for over 75 years.

Large Exisiting User Base: Propane is used in over 14,000,000 homes.

Annual Sales: U.S. sales of propane exceed $10,000,000,000 (10 billion) per year.

Growth: The market is growing at 2.5% per year, HOWEVER, because we are selecting only fast growing markets with strong long-term growth potential, our franchise market areas are growing faster than the national rate.

Rural Homes: A 1st Propane® franchise is focused mainly on rural homes that are using propane to heat the home. It is estimated that there are 7,000,000 homes in the U.S. using propane for heat.

Large Territories: We sell only territories that already have at least 10,000 homes using propane. We expect that most franchise locations will grow to 1000-2000 customers, although larger customer bases are easily supported by the PLATO System.