Adjusted Textile and Apparel Market Sizes for a True Picture of Reality

Economics are mostly weak around the globe and economic growth projections 2024-29 are predominantly lower than the pre-pandemic average. Furthermore, international relations are at stake from a potential round of protective tariffs and the textile manufacturing base is on the line in several countries.

A specific subject TFY has paid great attention to is the analysis of national market sizes in textile and apparel consumption.

Using the well-known formular like “Production + Import – Export = Consumption” arrives at pretty questionable conclusions. To give you an example, do you have confidence in the North American region to have lifted its market size in demand by 13% in 2020 – the first year of pandemic? That would be the result of regional fiber and spunlaid production as well as official trade data.

Similar ludicrous findings would also be the result for several markets in the European area with expansions in France (4%), Switzerland (16%), Spain (21%), UK (21%), Italy (25%) and Netherlands (29%) although we all know that store closures and movement restrictions spoiled consumers’ willingness for spendings. Instead, the household saving rate in the euro area jumped from 13% in 2019 to more than 19% one year later.

On the other hand, do you believe in a Chinese per capita consumption level of 27 kg for the last year when the world average amounted to 16 kg at best?

In a nutshell, there is more to consider to ultimately accomplish realistic results. In addition, a special feature in recent years with rapidly surging impact has not yet been taken into account.

The exceptional consequences of pandemic all hit us flatfooted. Our daily life was all of a sudden in disarray. Many swiftly learned to go shopping online. What is considered convenient has become a massively growing trend at the expense of brick and mortar retailers.

The flow of goods from B2C platforms, directly delivering to private persons, is not being registered. The most prominent players are the only-fashion company SHEIN and fast growing Temu. They benefit from a so-called de minimis value threshold in most countries, exempting imported goods from customs duties and/or taxes. It varies from EUR150 into EU to USD800 into the U.S. which Congress just raised in 2016.

Those movements of goods, unreported volumes leaving China and entering the remaining world, are believed to have reached a significant size by now. A brand-new calculation model delivers projections for a number of markets where those quantities partly occupy a double-digit share in the national apparel demand by now. A continuous methodology was applied to main markets in an attempt to transform revenues into volumes to get a sense of the penetration rate in the national apparel segment.

Markets analyzed in the new series refer to Asia, Europe and North America. The series includes the following markets: Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Türkiye, UK and U.S.

The goal is to convert dollar of estimated SHEIN sales in specific markets into kilogram in an attempt to achieve more realistic market sizes. It helps to get an indication of the projected share in the official apparel import volume and a potential share in the local apparel market size. Temu made inroads into the U.S. market in 2022 and some European markets in 2023. Sales estimates are more speculative in terms of the garment portion as it is not a fashion-only platform. However, aggressive advertising for its low-cost products to gain market shares needs to be followed up.

High-level conclusions on regional basis show for the analyzed countries the following development of textile and apparel consumption per capita.

The demand in both North America and the European area contracted by around 18% in 2020. North American consumption strongly recovered in the following year and kept subsequent levels significantly higher than in the pre-crisis period. In contrast, revival in the European region drove with at least one foot on the brakes and consumers did not yet arrive at pre-pandemic sizes. Textile and apparel consumption in Asia saw the least decrease in the first year of pandemic and a strong rebound in 2021 to a new peak that consecutively was outperformed.

The projected share of SHEIN quantities in relation to the local apparel market size showed a broad range, amounting for the U.S. and three European nations at double-digit percentage rates by now.

The calculated unsold, landfilled or restocked volume in North America and the European region was quite comparable in absolute terms at nearly 9 million tonnes between 2015 and 2023. It came up to a 16% share in North America and 18% in Europe for the years of corona 2020 to 2022.

This subject is certainly not about figures only. Media coverage is increasingly touching upon issues such as ethical concerns, working conditions, IPR, quality of products, harmful chemicals, transportation concerns and other environmental concerns. On top of that, the question for sustainability is absolutely justified. The on-demand production of those B2C platforms reduces waste and the volume of dead stock but the limited life span of articles and their air freight delivery foil sustainability to some degree. Such discussions will undoubtedly come to the fore but appear far beyond TFY capacity at present.

Reports for abovementioned countries are available in the shop and TFY 2024 license grants a 25% discount on the new series.