In a previous report we mentioned that Imports of Women’s/Girls Jeans into US in the period from Jan-June 2009 increased over 6.34% over the same period in the year 2008. Lets see how this category fared over the entire last year and whether the same trend continued towards the end of the year or not.
| From | 2007 (million pcs) |
2008 (million pcs) |
2009 (million pcs) |
% inc. in 2009 over 2007 | % inc. in 2009 over 2008 |
| World | 249.59 | 269.54 | 278.91 | +11.74% | +3.35% |
| China | 43.75 | 60.63 | 115.80 | +164.70% | +47.63% |
| Mexico | 38.97 | 30.49 | 27.10 | -30.45% | -12.53% |
| Bangladesh | 15.77 | 18.47 | 23.13 | +46.71% | +20.18% |
| Vietnam | 7.62 | 12.83 | 16.32 | +114.18% | +21.39% |
| Egypt | 13.35 | 15.77 | 14.73 | +10.37% | -7.05% |
| Cambodia | 12.96 | 15.75 | 11.07 | -14.52% | -42.17% |
| Jordan | 9.00 | 9.56 | 8.06 | -10.35% | -18.47% |
| Nicaragua | 5.51 | 9.00 | 6.97 | +26.58% | -28.95% |
| Pakistan | 8.41 | 7.61 | 6.92 | -17.76% | -9.97% |
| Indonesia | 7.56 | 7.02 | 6.31 | -16.51% | -11.11% |
| Sri Lanka | 7.96 | 7.67 | 6.05 | -24% | -26.80% |
| Madagascar | 6.82 | 8.00 | 5.97 | -12.57% | -34.08% |
| Lesotho | 5.91 | 5.59 | 5.96 | +0.85% | +6.23% |
| Kenya | 3.64 | 6.15 | 5.04 | +38.52% | -22.12% |
| India | 2.93 | 4.76 | 4.18 | +42.39% | -13.96% |
Source:US Customs
It is very interesting to see that the trend of increase in imports of women’s/girls jeans continued even in the second half of the year and a net increase of about 3.35% was achieved on year on year basis (2009 over 2008). The undertone of imports is very strong and indicates a strong market for the women’s denim jeans in the US . This tone is expected to continue even in the current year.
Winners :
China , Vietnam and Bangladesh emerge as strong winners – improving their export performance continuously and in great volumes .China has specially increased its share dramatically.All of these three destinations are strong denim production centers providing low priced jeans. This does indicate that the buyers are definitely getting more and more price concious where denim buying is concerned. However, they also want a quality product and some cheaper destinations which could not probably provide the same –eg Cambodia- have emerged as losers. India has also improved its exports but the overall volumes are quite limited. Lesotho seems to have gained whereas as its sub-saharan fellow country Madagascar is losing its share. Out of the two, Lesotho is a cheaper producer of denim jeans and a number of denim factories(garments) have been established there by reputed manufacturers from around the world including Taiwan.
Losers :
Mexico and South American countries are among the biggest losers . Whereas in earlier years, these countries had captured a large % share of US imports of denim jeans, their importance is slowly reducing on account of increased costs of production . This is despite various advantages provided by the US government to them. Jordan is also losing its cost competitiveness and has lost some share to Egypt. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia are surprise losers – even though being important denim centers and being low cost countries.
