Experiencing the knock-on effects from the beleaguered textile industry, global market for Textile Machinery is expected to slump by -30% in the year 2020 and thereafter recover to reach 10.9 million units by the year 2027 trailing a post COVID-19 CAGR of 9.1% over the analysis period 2020 to 2027. COVID-19 has come down hard on the textile & fashion industry. Between 1Q and 2Q, the industry moved swiftly from shortage of raw material supply to order cancellations. Retail sales of apparel & home furnishings worldwide are continuing to plummet in response to cutback son consumer spending as a result of rising unemployment & shrinking disposable incomes. The string of bad market fundamentals characterized by low demand, order cancellations, labor/raw material disruptions & revenue losses, is impacting the textile industry & its entire value chain & allied sectors. With global GDP dipping into the red at -3% for the year 2020, sales of textiles, garments and apparel remains subdued. As businesses struggle to keep afloat, job cuts and bankruptcies are expected to rise sending millions into unemployment. Unemployment rates are climbing to worrisome levels in both developed and developing economies alike. In the US alone, over 5.2 million people have filed for unemployment claims over the last 1 month. The loss in consumer confidence and erosion of household wealth and discretionary spending will impact virtually every industry and business worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has therefore pushed consumers to conserve cash. With unemployment rates rising amid the virus induced economic crisis, consumers are cutting spending budgets. Unemployment rates have hit never-before highs with the US topping the charts with 12.5% unemployed as a % of total labor force.

Social outlook against this background remains grim with households expected witness erosion in wealth. Personal financial outlook, community, economy, job security confidence, purchasing and investment confidence are all tumbling as the human and economic cost of the global pandemic rises. Investments in procurement of new textile machinery, against this backdrop, is taking a direct blow as textile plants idle and/or function at less than 60% capacity. A part of the industrial machine tools market, textile machinery will feel the pain of declining manufacturing activity. Division of labor, modular manufacturing strategies, outsourcing to reduce costs and increase the efficiency, consistency, and quality of each operations, have made the manufacturing sector most vulnerable amid the lockdown restrictions. An indication of the grim state of affairs is the fact that global manufacturing PMI is already declining and will fall to an estimated all-time low in 2020 as compared to the 53.8 in 2019. With roots in China, the world's supply chains are facing unprecedented disruption and shutdown. Interwoven with a demand crisis, the supply chain shocks are exerting a compounded blow to manufacturing companies worldwide. A combination of all the aforementioned macro-economic issues alongside more specific factors such as suspension of the transportation and changes in demand patterns have dealt a debilitating blow to the manufacturing industry. On a monthly basis, global manufacturing PMI continuously degraded from 52.2 points in January 2020 to 39.6 points in April 2020 and 42.4 points in May 2020. This indicates severe contraction of manufacturing activity including new orders, production, employment, supplier deliveries, inventories, customers' inventories, commodity prices, order backlog, new export orders, and imports. Business investment confidence is tumbling amidst poor demand, falling profits, liquidity crunch and a reeling global economy. The "great lockdown" of 2020 has crushed the global economy and with it the manufacturing sector.

In the post COVID-19 period, growth will be led by the re-emergence of China as a key market. China represents the largest market for textile machinery. Once being a major importer of textile machinery, China transformed into a global hub for manufacturing of textile machinery and swiftly became a major exporter of world-class textile machinery to all parts of the world. China has remained the largest investor in textile machinery such as spinning, weaving, and knitting machinery over the recent past. Favorable government support in terms of recent initiatives such as 'Made in China 2025' and 13th five year plan for the textile industry with focus on automation and value-added manufacturing has pumped significant investments into upstream textile plants. Textile machinery manufacturers in China have and will continue to invest heavily to address the increasing apparel demand from both Chinese and foreign customers. A major reason behind the popularity of Chinese textile machinery in Asian countries is its low cost and close proximity. Some of the machinery from China, cost about half the price compared to its western counterparts. Growth in the industry is supported by technological innovations. China represents one of the major exporters of textile machinery, with China-made textile machinery accounting for more than 35% of worldwide textile machinery exports. The country manufactures more than 600 types of textile machinery and ancillaries. Chinese companies have developed various energy saving and emission reduction products at very competitive prices. Additionally, textile machinery companies have also incorporated Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) in their product offerings. About 80% of the Chinese domestic textile machinery market comprises China-made products, while the remaining 20% is imported from other countries. Chinese provinces like Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang account for about 70% of the country's overall textile machinery imports. All of these factors prime China for post pandemic growth resurgence.