ZÜRICH — June 11, 2020 — In 2019, global shipments of spinning, texturing, weaving, knitting, and finishing machines decreased on average compared to 2018. Deliveries of new short-staple spindles, open-end rotors, and long-staple spindles dropped by 20 percent, 20 percent, and 66 percent, respectively. The number of shipped draw-texturing spindles declined by 4.5 percent and deliveries of shuttle-less looms shrunk by 0.5 percent. Shipments of large circular machines contracted by 1.2 percent, while shipped flat knitting machines fell by 40 percent. The sum of deliveries in the finishing segment also dropped by 2 percent on average.
These are the main results of the 42nd annual International Textile Machinery Shipment Statistics (ITMSS) just released by the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF). The report covers six segments of textile machinery, namely spinning, draw-texturing, weaving, large circular knitting, flat knitting and finishing. A summary of the findings for each category is presented below. The 2019 survey has been compiled in cooperation with more than 200 textile machinery manufacturers representing a comprehensive measure of world production.
Spinning Machinery
The total number of shipped short-staple spindles decreased by about 1.7 million units in 2019 to a level of 6.96 million. Most of the new short-staple spindles (92 percent) were shipped to Asia & Oceania, where delivery decreased by 20 percent. While levels stayed relatively small, Africa and South America saw shipments increasing by 150 percent and 120 percent, respectively. The six largest investors in the short-staple segment were China, India, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
563,600 open-end rotors were shipped worldwide in 2019. This represents a 147,500-units drop compared to 2018. Ninety percent of global shipments went to Asia & Oceania where deliveries decreased by 21 percent to 517,000 rotors. Indonesia and Pakistan, the world’s 5th and 6th largest investors in open-end rotors, increased their investments by 120 percent and 15 percent, respectively. China, Vietnam, India, and Uzbekistan, the world’s 1st to 4th largest investors in 2019 decreased investment by 48 percent on average.
Global shipments of long-staple (wool) spindles decreased from 120,000 in 2018 to nearly 40,000 in 2019 (-66 percent). This effect was mainly driven by a fall in deliveries to Europe (-72 percent) and South America (-80 percent). Eighty percent of total deliveries where shipped to China and India.
Texturing Machinery
Global shipments of single heater draw-texturing spindles (mainly used for polyamide filaments) increased by 12 percent from nearly 22,800 in 2018 to 25,500 in 2019. With a share of 88 percent, Asia & Oceania was the strongest destination for single heater draw- texturing spindles. China and Chinese Taipei were the main investors in this segment with a share of 64 percent and 12 percent of global deliveries, respectively.
In the category of double heater draw-texturing spindles (mainly used for polyester filaments) global shipments decreased by 5 percent to a level of 464,000 spindles. Asia’s share of worldwide shipments decreased to 90 percent. Thereby, China remained the largest investor accounting for 77 percent of global shipments.
Weaving Machinery
In 2019, worldwide shipments of shuttle-less looms decreased by 0.6 percent to 133,250 units. Thereby, shipments in the categories of “air-jet” and “rapier and projectile” fell by 7.7 percent to 30,200 and 22 percent to 25’000, respectively. The deliveries of water-jet looms increased by 12 percent to 78,000. The main destination for shuttle-less looms in 2019 was Asia & Oceania with 95 percent of all worldwide deliveries. Ninety eight percent, 93 percent, 86 percent of all water-jet, air-jet, and rapier/projectile looms went to that region. The main investors were China and India in all three sub-categories. Deliveries of weaving machines to these two countries reached 89 percent of total deliveries. Bangladesh further played an important role in the rapier/projectile segment with 20 percent of global shipments.
Circular & Flat Knitting Machinery
Global shipments of large circular knitting machines fell by 1.2 percent to 26,400 units in 2019. The region Asia & Oceania was the world’s leading investor in this category with 86 percent of worldwide shipments. With 61 percent of all deliveries (i.e. 13,143 units), China was the favored destination. India and Vietnam ranked second and third with 2,670 and 2,210 units, respectively.
In 2019, the segment of electronic flat knitting machines decreased by 40 percent to around 96,000 machines. Asia & Oceania was the main destination for these machines with a share of 92 percent of world shipments. China remained the world’s largest investor with an 80 percent-share despite a 44-percent-decrease in investments from 122,550 units to 68,760 units.
Finishing Machinery
In the “fabrics continuous” segment, shipments of tenters and washing (stand-alone) grew by 34 percent and 0.6 percent. The growth in tenter deliveries is mainly explained by the addition of ITMF’s estimate for the number of tenters. The total number of shipped tenters of 1,700 units thus represents an estimate of the total market for this category.
In the “fabrics discontinuous” segment, the number of jigger dyeing/beam dyeing shipped rose by 35 percent to 561 units. Deliveries in all other machine categories in both finishing sub-segments (i.e. continuous and discontinuous) decreased in 2019.
Posted June 11, 2020
Source: International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF)
