In 2019, global shipments of spinning, texturing, weaving, knitting, and finishing machines decreased on average compared to 2018. The deliveries of new short-staple spindles, open-end rotors, and long-staple spindles dropped by -20%, -20%, and -66%, respectively. The number of shipped draw-texturing spindles declined by -4.5% and deliveries of shuttle-less looms shrunk by – 0.5%. Shipments of large circular machines contracted by -1.2%, while shipped flat knitting machines fell by -40%. The sum of deliveries in the finishing segment also dropped by -2% on average.
These are the main results of the 42th 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%) were shipped to Asia & Oceania, where delivery decreased by -20%. While levels stayed relatively small, Africa and South America saw shipments increasing by +150% and +120%, 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.
Texturing Machinery
The global shipments of single heater draw-texturing spindles (mainly used for polyamide filaments) increased by +12% from nearly 22’800 in 2018 to 25’500 in 2019. With a share of 88%, Asia and 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% and 12% of global deliveries, respectively.
Weaving Machinery
In 2019, worldwide shipments of shuttle-less looms decreased by -0.6% to 133’250 units. Thereby, shipments in the categories of “air-jet” and “rapier and projectile” fell by -7.7% to 30’200 and -22% to 25’000, respectively. The deliveries of water-jet looms increased by +12% to 78’000. The main destination for shuttle-less looms in 2019 was Asia & Oceania with 95% of all worldwide deliveries. 98%, 93%, 86% 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.
Circular and Flat Knitting Machinery
Global shipments of large circular knitting machines fell by -1.2% to 26’400 units in 2019. The region Asia & Oceania was the world’s leading investor in this category with 86% of worldwide shipments.
Finishing Machinery
In the “fabrics continuous” segment, shipments of stenters and washing (stand-alone) grew by +34% and +0.6%. The growth in stenter deliveries is mainly explained by the addition of ITMF’s estimate for the number of stenters. The total number of shipped stenters of 1’700 units thus represents an estimate of the total market for this category.
