China Textile Machinery Association recently conducted a survey on 95 key enterprises covering spinning machinery, weaving machinery, knitting machinery, printing and dyeing machinery, chemical fiber and non-woven machinery. The survey shows that in Q3 2020, order conditions generally improved compared to Q2 2020, and the impact of domestic COVID-19 is gradually easing.
Statistics show that from January to September 2020, one-third of surveyed enterprises had order levels exceeding 2019, while 67% had fewer orders than the same period in 2019, with 11% experiencing severe declines of over 50%. Main product sales prices showed a slight downward trend. Nearly half of enterprises reported prices unchanged compared to 2019, while price reductions mainly occurred in spinning machinery, weaving machinery and knitting machinery enterprises, and price increases were mostly seen in printing and dyeing machinery enterprises.
Leading Enterprises Running Steadily
Since 2020, market performance has varied across textile machinery sub-sectors. Water-jet looms in weaving machinery, flat knitting machines in knitting machinery, and false-twist texturing machines in chemical fiber machinery saw significant declines; warp knitting machines, printing and dyeing machinery, and chemical filament spinning equipment markets remained relatively stable; non-woven machinery market saw substantial growth. Since Q3, all sub-sectors have shown accelerated recovery, and overall textile machinery industry indicators continue to improve.
Currently, domestic textile machinery holds a market share of 70-80%, with export growth averaging 5.19% annually. China's textile machinery export share of global exports is gradually increasing, reaching $3.78 billion in 2019, ranking first globally, indicating strong competitiveness.
Association officials reported that in the first three quarters of 2020, main challenges included insufficient domestic and foreign market demand, rising cost pressures, blocked sales channels, customer order cancellations, raw material procurement difficulties, increasing energy conservation and emission reduction pressures, and RMB exchange rate fluctuations.
Nevertheless, survey data shows that leading enterprises in the textile machinery industry operated more robustly amid overall adjustment in 2020, better coping with market fluctuations and achieving more outstanding operating indicators.
Printing and Dyeing Machinery Turning Positive
With effective national epidemic prevention and control, the printing and dyeing machinery industry gradually overcame adverse impacts, maintaining stable production and gradually improving operations. Leveraging China's complete textile industry supply chain advantages, it effectively filled international supply gaps.
According to association research, in Q1 2020, enterprises faced severe labor shortages, widespread order cancellations or postponements, export obstacles, reduced market demand, and fewer new orders, mostly relying on pre-epidemic orders. As domestic epidemic control achieved positive results, the domestic market gradually recovered from April 2020, and various main equipment capacities and orders continued to rebound in Q2 and Q3.
Statistics show that from January to September 2020, major pre-treatment equipment performed well in Q3. Key enterprises sold 33 mercerizing machines, up about 18% year-on-year; 55 combined scouring and bleaching machines, down about 9% year-on-year; and 80 washing machines, basically unchanged. Most enterprises reported good pre-treatment equipment orders, with export orders affected by epidemic-related delivery delays, but domestic sales offset losses.
From the first three quarters of 2020, traditional printing equipment performed better, digital direct printing equipment remained basically unchanged compared to 2019, and high-speed paper printing equipment grew over 10%. Digital printing equipment is relatively flexible and better adapts to small-batch, multi-batch order demands during the epidemic. Stenter machine sales totaled nearly 900 units, down about 10% year-on-year. Q3 2020 stenter capacity basically recovered, with Q3-to-Q2 growth of nearly 40%.
It was also reported that traditional export markets such as India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh saw significant declines due to the epidemic. The top five export provinces were Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Shandong, with export value of $556 million, accounting for 79.85% of total printing and dyeing machinery exports.
Spinning Machinery Beginning to Recover
First three quarters 2020 statistics show that due to the epidemic, overall domestic and foreign spinning machinery market demand was sluggish. Sales of various main equipment and components declined to varying degrees; among imported equipment, only air-jet vortex spinning equipment continued to grow, indicating sustained domestic demand for this technology.
Due to ongoing foreign epidemics, import/export logistics and personnel movement difficulties, and slow economic recovery, overseas market recovery will take longer. With stable domestic epidemic control and continuously released domestic demand potential, plus some international textile orders shifting to China, textile enterprises began to gradually warm up from July 2020, and demand for equipment and components gradually increased. Spinning machinery enterprises saw orders gradually rebound from August 2020.
Data shows that in the first three quarters of 2020, approximately 1,500 high-speed carding machines were sold; about 900 drawframes with auto-leveling devices were sold, accounting for about 56.3% of total sales; about 220 roving frames with roving devices, accounting for about 61.1% of total; long-frame spinning machines (with automatic doffing) sold about 1.02 million spindles, accounting for 81% of total ring spinning machines; compact spinning devices sold about 2.06 million spindles, down 41.1% year-on-year.
Chemical Fiber Machinery Accumulating Strength
In Q1 2020, Spring Festival holidays and the COVID-19 epidemic caused chemical fiber equipment enterprises to fail to resume normal production and operation. To cope with epidemic prevention and control needs, some chemical fiber machinery enterprises adjusted product directions and actively switched to producing epidemic prevention materials and related equipment.
In the first three quarters of 2020, polyester, nylon and other filament spinning machines shipped approximately 11,000 positions, up 15.78% year-on-year compared to 2019; high-speed false-twist texturing machines shipped approximately 840 units, down 40% year-on-year. False-twist texturing machine orders declined, but saw substantial rebound from Q3 2020. With effective domestic COVID-19 control and accelerated enterprise resumption, full-year results are expected to recover. Polyester staple fiber complete equipment new capacity was about 230,000 tons, down 48.88% compared to 2019. Viscose complete equipment new capacity increased compared to last year.
Association officials stated that currently, 639 major chemical fiber enterprises achieved operating revenue of 47.704 billion yuan, down 16.04% year-on-year, with growth rate declining 19.073 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The revenue decline in the first three quarters narrowed by 0.98 percentage points compared to the first half.
