The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Chinese manufacturers pumped out 3.4 billion garments in January and February of this year, an increase of 38.4 percent over the same period a year earlier, according to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Over these two months, the combined operating revenue for 12,438 major garment firms surveyed by the ministry equalled 179.2 billion yuan ($27.4 billion), rising 21.4 percent year-on-year.
China’s online retail sales of clothing, meanwhile, rose 44.3 percent year-on-year in the first two months, and the country’s garment exports were up 50 percent on the year to $24 billion.
Though this data is a promising sign for China’s garment industry’s recovery, last year’s data for this period was particularly poor as Chinese New Year and the widespread outbreak of Covid-19 in China coalesced in the second half of January 2020. China’s garment manufacturing sector has yet to return to pre-pandemic output or revenue.
With consumers tightening their belts in China, the battle between global fast fashion brands and local high street giants has intensified.
Investors are bracing for a steep slowdown in luxury sales when luxury companies report their first quarter results, reflecting lacklustre Chinese demand.
The French beauty giant’s two latest deals are part of a wider M&A push by global players to capture a larger slice of the China market, targeting buzzy high-end brands that offer products with distinctive Chinese elements.
Post-Covid spend by US tourists in Europe has surged past 2019 levels. Chinese travellers, by contrast, have largely favoured domestic and regional destinations like Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.