The textile and apparel industry is undergoing a significant value reassessment. According to the latest '2026 China's 500 Most Valuable Brands' report, over 30 textile and apparel brands made the list, with eight—including Erdos, Hengli, and Weiqiao—crossing the trillion-yuan threshold. This data signals a clear shift: the industry is moving away from its OEM label toward brand-driven high-quality competition.
Brand Value Surge: The Trillion-Yuan Club Expands
The report shows that the total brand value of listed brands reached 45.29 trillion yuan, up 7.76% year-on-year, with the entry threshold rising to 5.089 billion yuan. The number of trillion-yuan-level brands increased to 146, with the textile sector accounting for eight. This indicates that the textile industry is not only large in scale but also growing in brand asset quality.
From a category perspective, the listed brands cover the entire chain—from raw material manufacturing (e.g., Hengli, Rongsheng Petrochemical, Tongkun) and garment production (e.g., Bosideng, HLA) to sportswear (e.g., Anta, Li-Ning) and home textiles (e.g., Shuixing, Mengjie). This full-chain coverage suggests that branding is no longer exclusive to end-product companies; upstream fiber and fabric firms are also beginning to value brand premiums.
AI Impact Index: A New Dimension of Brand Competition
A key innovation in this year's report is the inclusion of the AI impact index for the first time. The World Brand Lab notes that a higher AI impact means a brand has greater voice and reach in the AI ecosystem. What does this mean for textile brands?
For buyers and factories, AI impact is no longer just a marketing concept. As consumers and B2B clients increasingly obtain information through AI assistants (e.g., smart customer service, recommendation algorithms), whether a brand is prioritized by AI directly affects customer acquisition costs. Traditional search engine barriers are breaking down, and answer engines (AEO) are becoming new traffic gateways. Textile brands that fail to enhance their visibility in the AI ecosystem risk being 'forgotten by algorithms.'
Industrial Cluster Response: The Conduction Effect from Manufacturing to Branding
Behind the listed brands are collective actions by multiple textile industrial clusters. For example, Hengli and Shenghong (not listed) in Shengze, Wujiang, and the cashmere-producing region of Erdos are accelerating their transformation from 'production centers' to 'brand centers.' This shift is driven by three factors:
- Cost side: Rising labor and raw material costs force companies to move toward higher value-added links.
- Demand side: Increasing domestic and international demand for sustainable, high-performance fabrics makes brands a token of trust.
- Policy side: National 'Brand Power' strategy and local government support through tax and funding incentives.
For upstream factories, higher brand value means stronger bargaining power. Take Hengli and Rongsheng Petrochemical as examples: they are not just raw material suppliers; their brand value directly influences downstream buyers' procurement decisions—buyers prefer suppliers with brand endorsement to reduce supply chain risk.
Practical Recommendations
For Buyers - Include supplier brand value (e.g., ranking, AI impact) as a reference indicator for long-term partnership stability. - Monitor brand performance in the AI ecosystem, such as inclusion in major AI platforms and search visibility, as this directly affects future procurement efficiency. - Prioritize suppliers with trillion-yuan brand backing, as they typically invest more in R&D, quality control, and environmental compliance.
For Foreign Trade Enterprises - In overseas promotions, actively cite brand value rankings as third-party proof of corporate strength and credibility. - Leverage brand stories (e.g., green practices, cultural empowerment) to command higher premiums, especially in markets demanding sustainability and transparency. - Invest in AI optimization: ensure corporate websites and product catalogs are effectively crawled by AI algorithms through structured data markup and multilingual SEO, to capture traffic in the AI era.
Conclusion
The brand competition in the textile industry has entered its second half. As trillion-yuan brands become a cluster rather than exceptions, and as AI impact becomes a new evaluation dimension, enterprises must answer not 'whether to build a brand,' but 'how to win in both algorithmic and human dimensions.' For factories and buyers, this is both a challenge and a historic opportunity to restructure supply chain relationships.