International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) has announced that 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 20 per cent, 20 per cent and 66 per cent, respectively The number of shipped draw-texturing spindles declined by 4.5 per cent and deliveries of shuttle-less looms shrunk by 0.5 per cent. Shipments of large circular machines contracted 1.2 per cent while shipped flat knitting machines fell by 40 per cent. The sum of deliveries in the finishing segment also dropped 2 per cent on average. These are the main results of the 42th annual International Textile Machinery Shipment Statistics (ITMSS) just released by the ITMF. The report covers six segments of textile machinery namely spinning, draw-texturing, weaving, large circular knitting, flat knitting and finishing.
The 2019 survey has been compiled in cooperation with more than 200 textile machinery manufacturers representing a comprehensive measure of world production. The total number of shipped short-staple spindles decreased about 1.7 million units in 2019 to a level of 6.96 million. Most of the new short-staple spindles (92 per cent) were shipped to Asia & Oceania where delivery decreased by 20 per cent. While levels stayed relatively small, Africa and South America saw shipments increasing 150 per cent and 120 per cent respectively. The six largest investors in the short-staple segment were China, India, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Global shipments of single heater draw-texturing spindles (mainly used for polyamide filaments) increased 12 per cent from nearly 22’800 in 2018 to 25’500 in 2019. With a share of 88 per cent, 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 per cent and 12 per cent of global deliveries respectively.
In 2019, worldwide shipments of shuttle-less looms decreased 0.6 per cent to 133’250 units. Thereby, shipments in the categories of “air-jet” and “rapier and projectile” fell 7.7 per cent to 30’200 and 22 per cent to 25’000, respectively. The deliveries of water-jet looms increased 12 per cent to 78’000. The main destination for shuttle-less looms in 2019 was Asia & Oceania with 95 per cent of all worldwide deliveries. Global shipments of large circular knitting machines fell 1.2 per cent to 26’400 units in 2019. The region Asia & Oceania was the world’s leading investor in this category with 86 per cent of worldwide shipments. In the “fabrics continuous” segment, shipments of stenters and washing (stand-alone) grew 34 per cent and 0.6 per cent.
