A set of contrasting figures captures the real situation of the sewing machinery industry in the first half of this year: revenue of 312 large enterprises grew 12.18% year-on-year, and profit growth was even higher at 17.35%, but export growth slowed to only 2.69%. More notably, industrial sewing machine export volume rose 6.25% while export value fell 2.55%—volume up, price down, indicating that the industry is trading lower unit prices for market share, with profit growth mainly driven by the premium of automated equipment.
Production Side: Automated Equipment Output Surges 36.41%, Intelligence Becomes the Only Certainty
Structural changes on the production side are more telling than aggregate data. In the first half, industrial value added of large enterprises grew 11.5%, significantly outpacing the national industrial average. The top 100 complete-machine manufacturers achieved total industrial output of 12 billion yuan, up 1.75%, but total output of sewing equipment reached 3.41 million units, up 8.97%, with industrial sewing machines at 2.51 million units, up 10.17%. Output growth far exceeding output value growth implies that average unit prices are falling, and competition in conventional models is intensifying on price.
The real growth engine is automated equipment—output surged 36.41%, more than three times the growth rate of traditional sewing models. Behind this figure is a genuine shift in downstream garment factories' purchasing logic: they no longer simply pursue single-machine capacity but place more value on automated production lines and whole-factory digital solutions. For equipment manufacturers, this means product structure must tilt toward high value-added, and single-machine sales models are being replaced by system solutions.
Domestic Market: Decline Narrows but Still Down 15%, Demand Shifts to 'Quality Improvement'
The domestic market is still bottoming out. According to industry estimates, domestic sales of sewing equipment fell about 15% year-on-year, but the decline narrowed by 10 to 15 percentage points compared with the previous year. Total retail sales of consumer goods grew only 1.3%, while clothing, shoes, hats, and knitwear retail sales grew 6.7%, indicating that the recovery in terminal consumption has not yet fully transmitted to equipment purchases.
What is noteworthy is that the structure of domestic demand is undergoing qualitative change. A group of small and medium-sized garment factories focused on flexible production are still moderately updating automated sewing and embroidery equipment to adapt to fragmented orders. High-value-added orders are periodically returning to China, driving the domestic market from 'quantity expansion' to 'quality improvement.' For equipment factories, domestic sales are no longer a rising tide; they are structural opportunities—those who can provide automated equipment suited to small-order fast-response will carve out a share in the stagnant market.
Foreign Trade: Regional Divergence, South Asia, Latin America, and Central Asia Become New Growth Poles
Export markets show significant divergence. Total exports in the first half reached USD 2.053 billion, up 2.69%. Embroidery machines performed outstandingly, with exports of USD 561 million, a sharp increase of 19.19%, while industrial sewing machine export value fell 2.55%. Regionally, exports to South Asia, Latin America, and Central Asia grew significantly; India, Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States grew faster; while Vietnam, Pakistan, and Bangladesh saw negative growth.
This unevenness directly mirrors the ongoing shift of global textile and garment industry layout. South Asia, Latin America, and Central Asia are absorbing new capacity transfers, driving up demand for sewing machinery; meanwhile, markets like Vietnam and Bangladesh, which grew rapidly in previous years, are now facing order diversion and local competition, entering a plateau in equipment procurement. For exporters, a one-size-fits-all product strategy no longer works; they need to adjust products and channel strategies according to the industrial stage of different regions.
Chain Transmission: Fabric Market Orders Fragment, Equipment Purchasing Logic Rewritten
As a core distribution hub for national textile fabrics, the China Textile City (Qingfangcheng) order landscape confirms changes on the equipment side. Traditional large-batch long orders are shrinking; small-order fast-response and flexible customization have become mainstream trade models, with orders starting from a few hundred meters taking an increasing share. Online sample selection and offline rapid sampling are widely adopted; fabric merchants and garment processing plants no longer stock blindly but schedule production based on terminal feedback.
This means downstream demand for equipment has upgraded from single-machine performance to whole-factory digital transformation. For sewing machinery enterprises, selling machines alone is insufficient; they must provide intelligent production lines that interface with ERP and MES systems. For fabric buyers, supply chain response speed will become a core competitiveness—the divergence at the equipment end essentially reflects the entire industry chain shifting from scale-driven to efficiency-driven.