The 47th annual International Textile Machinery Shipment Statistics (ITMSS) just released by the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) show a mixed picture for business in 2024, but at the same time underline the continuous leadership of China in making new capacity investments, not least in synthetic fibre production.

The report covers six segments of textile machinery, namely filament draw-texturing, spinning, weaving, large circular knitting, flat knitting and finishing. The 2024 survey has been compiled in cooperation with more than 200 textile machinery manufacturers representing a comprehensive measure of world production.

Synthetic fibre technology

In the category of double heater draw-texturing spinning positions, primarily for the production of polyester filaments, global shipments increased by over 80% to 960,000 units. Asia’s share of worldwide shipments was 98%.

China alone, however accounted for 95% of all orders. It was a similar picture in polyamide filament machinery shipments, which increased by over 95% to 84,000 positions, with China responsible for 95% of them.

Spinning machinery

The total number of shipped short-staple spindles fell by 3.8 million units in 2024 to a level of 5.92 million. Most of the new shipments went to Asia where deliveries decreased by 36% compared to 2023. The six largest investors in the short-staple segment were China, India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Egypt and Indonesia.

Some 623,000 open-end rotors were shipped worldwide in 2024, about 390,000 less than recorded in 2023. China, India and Turkey were the world’s three largest investors in rotors but each ordered less than in 2023 and deliveries fell in all major manufacturing countries with the exception of Vietnam and Bangladesh, where shipments climbed by 214% and 44% respectively compared to 2023.

Global shipments of long-staple spindles for wool spinning increased to 600,000 in 2024, up 60% and driven by a rise in deliveries to both Asia and Eastern Europe where 138,000 and 15,000 units were shipped respectively. Around 40% of these machines were shipped to Iran.

Weaving machinery

Global shipments of shuttle-less looms increased by +32% to 226,000 units. Deliveries of air-jet looms increased 10% to 58,000 and water jet loom sales were up 56%, with 143,000 sold.

The number of rapier and projectile looms dropped by 7% to 25,000 units, with Asia taking 97% of deliveries.

Knitting machinery

Global shipments of large circular knitting machines fell by15% to 28,000 units in 2024, with Asia buying 81% of them and China taking 10,786 units. India and Vietnam ranked second and third with 3,899 and 2,559 units respectively.

The number of shipped electronic flat knitting machines increased by +16% to 135,000 machines in 2024, with 96% sold to Asia and 82% to China.

Finishing machinery

An estimated 2,230 finishing stenters were sold in 2024, compared to 1,833 machines in 2023, including an estimate for the total number of stenters shipped by companies which have not participated to the ITMF survey. Participating companies reported mixed results for all other machines in this category.

www.itmf.org