Zurich - Global shipments of both flat and circular knitting machines fell in 2019 with China in particular seeing a significant drop in investment.

The 42nd annual International Textile Machinery Shipment Statistics (ITMSS) just released by the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) show that global shipments of large circular knitting machines fell by 1.2% to 26,400 units in 2019 with the Asia & Oceania region remaining as the world’s leading investor in this category with 86% of worldwide shipments.

With 61% of all deliveries (i.e. 13,143 units), China was the main destination with India and Vietnam ranking second and third with 2,670 and 2,210 units, respectively.

Deliveries of of electronic flat knitting machines decreased by -40% to around 96,000 machines in the same period. Asia & Oceania was again the main destination for these machines with a share of 92% of world shipments. China remained the world’s largest investor with an 80%-share despite a 44%-decrease in investments from 122,550 units to 68,760 units.

In other sectors, global shipments of spinning, texturing, weaving and finishing machines also decreased on average compared to 2018. 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 deliveries in the finishing segment also dropped by 2% on average. 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.

In the Fabrics Discontinuous segment, the number of jigger dyeing / beam dyeing shipped rose by +35% to 561 units. Deliveries in all other machine categories in both finishing sub-segments (i.e. continuous and discontinuous) decreased in 2019.