According to the latest public data from China Customs, in June 2026, China imported approximately 170,000 tons of cotton yarn, a year-on-year surge of 54.2%, but flat month-on-month. This seemingly contradictory combination—soaring YoY but stagnant MoM—reveals structural divergence in the current imported cotton yarn market.
More notably, cumulative imports for the first half of 2026 reached 1.05 million tons, up 56.3% YoY, while the 2025/26 season (September 2025 to June 2026) totaled 1.64 million tons, a 40.2% increase. On the surface, these figures suggest strong import demand, but the deceleration in month-on-month growth indicates that downstream absorption is approaching a temporary ceiling.
Month-on-Month Flat: Not Demand Peak, but Procurement Rhythm Shift
The zero MoM growth in June does not imply shrinking end demand. Feedback from industrial clusters in Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang shows that cotton yarn inventory turnover days at knitting mills dropped to 25-30 days in June, below the 35-day average in Q1. This means downstream mills are not refraining from buying yarn—they are waiting for the right price.
Since Q2 2026, international cotton prices have been oscillating narrowly in the 80-85 US cents/lb range on ICE futures, while cotton yarn quotations from major suppliers like India and Vietnam remain relatively high due to lagging raw material costs. The price gap between imported and domestic yarn has narrowed from 800-1,000 yuan/ton in Q1 to 400-600 yuan/ton in June, significantly compressing the price advantage of imported yarn.
Procurement teams have responded clearly: reducing spot purchases, increasing short-order volumes for immediate use, and shifting some demand to domestic high-count yarn. This rhythm shift directly led to the 'plateau' in import volumes at high absolute levels.
54.2% YoY Increase: Base Effect Masks Growth Inflection
The 54.2% YoY surge in June is largely due to the low base in the same period of 2025, when imports were only about 110,000 tons, a multi-year low. Excluding the base effect, June 2026's 170,000 tons is only slightly higher than June 2024's 165,000 tons, implying a two-year compound growth rate of less than 2%.
This data suggests that the 'revenge growth' phase for imported cotton yarn has largely ended. The 2025/26 season's first ten months totaled 1.64 million tons, up 40.2% YoY, but the growth rate has declined from over 60% in Q1 to 54.2% in June, a clear downward trend.
For traders, this means inventory management must shift from 'hoarding for price increases' to 'quick turnover.' Importers who locked in large forward cargoes in Q4 2025 are now facing the pressure of landed costs exceeding spot quotations.
Industry Transmission: Domestic Substitution and Demand Structure Upgrade
Behind the slowing import growth is a substantial improvement in the competitiveness of domestic cotton yarn. Xinjiang's cotton spinning capacity has exceeded 25 million spindles in 2026, with local 32-count carded yarn ex-factory prices 300-500 yuan/ton lower than imported yarn of the same specification, and delivery cycles shortened from 45-60 days for imports to 7-10 days.
An even more critical variable is the change in end-demand structure. In the first half of 2026, the share of high-count, high-density, and functional fabrics in home textile and apparel exports rose to 38%, and these products have low reliance on imported low-count yarn. The main categories of imported cotton yarn—16s to 32s carded yarn—are being squeezed by both domestic yarn and blended chemical fiber yarn.
Mills in Vietnam and India are also adjusting strategies: shifting some capacity to differentiated products like organic cotton yarn and recycled cotton yarn to avoid direct price competition with Xinjiang yarn. This further pushed up the average import price, which rose 1.8% month-on-month in June, a clear volume-price divergence signal.