The denim market in the US has been shrinking given the closure of many factories of both Denim Fabrics and the Garments due to high cost of production. The factories in US have not been able to bear the onslaught of the imports of cheaper garments from the Asian countries and have been closing down or relocating.
What is the total market of Denim Fabrics in the USA?
The total market for the fabric consists of the DOMESTIC PRODUCTION + IMPORTS of Denim(exports are negligible and have not been considered).
The figures below will give a very good idea of the trend of the market for the fabrics in the US – which is obviously southwards .
| Year | Production(in '000 sq.mtrs) | Prod. In Linear mtrs(million) | Imports(in '000 sq mtrs) | Imports(Million linear mtrs) | Total Market for Denim in US | Share of domestic companies(%) | ||
| 2000 | 725178 | 468 | 133687 | 86 | 554 | 84.4 | ||
| 2001 | 620156 | 400 | 136528 | 88 | 488 | 82 | ||
| 2002 | 588160 | 379 | 159539 | 103 | 482 | 78.7 | ||
| 2003 | 512542 | 331 | 96153 | 62 | 393 | 84.2 | ||
| 2004 | 509885 | 329 | 88360 | 57 | 386 | 85.2 | ||
| 2005 | 418576 | 270 | 58270 | 38 | 308 | 87.8 | ||
| 2006 | 289780 | 187 | 44262 | 29 | 216 | 86.7 |
Source:Otexa
We can clearly see that the production has fallen more than 60% from 468 million mtrs since the year 2000 to about 187 million mtrs in 2006.To put it into perspective, the total production of denim fabrics in India is about 440 million mtrs. The imports have fallen from 89 million mtrs in 2000 to only 29 million mtrs in 2006. The total market has also gone down by about 60% to 216 million mtrs. However, one interesting fact to notice is that the share of the domestic mills in the total market is almost constant all these years - about 85% . Though already known, I would like to again mention that still US is the biggest market in the world in terms of consumption of Denim Apparel ( though it is imported in apparel form).
