We will look at the production of jeans in these countries in the year 2012. These numbers will be given for men’s and women’s jeans separately. Also we will have a look at the production values for men’s and women’s jeans and see how they compare with the average value of import of jeans into EU.

a)Contact addresses of these 6 denim fabric buyers.
b)Who are the some of the buyers they supply denim garments to. Some details on these buyers – wherever warranted.
c)Which denim mills they have been buying their denim fabrics from , recently and their addresses .
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The year 2008 has again shown a drop of over 10% over 2007 and the net imports stand at 41 million mtrs. Perhaps a sign of times to come in this era of recession..

A report by CottonInc brings out the latest facts and trends in the jeans consumption in the US. It corroborates our previous report that the consumption and imports of Jeans in the US in 2008 was about 5% more than that in 2007.

Here are some interesting facts from the report:

a) US consumers:Own about 15 denim garments each on an average.
Out of these are 7 pairs of jeans.
Of all apparel purchased , denim formed 17% ( remember ,denim is the highest selling
clothing item in the world.
Are buying more of denim especially now since denim is more value for money.

b)Brand loyalty: Brand loyalty is quite high across genders,income levels and age groups.
73% of the consumers preferred to buy the same brand of jeans they owned.
64% of men and 45% of women preferred the same brand of jeans for 6 years.
What is interesting to note is that brand loyalty has been generated due to product
features rather than brand name. 66% consumers listed fit as the most important factor
for buying a jeans rather than its name (1%)

c)Price sensitivity:Price senstivity is going to increase in the year 2009. Though only 9% respondents
mentioned price as the reason to buy a brand, over 26% mention price will be the most
imp factor in the next purchase. With the economy slowing down, we should not be
surprised if this figure increases further.
Average price that a consumers were willing to pay for a good fitting jeans fell down from
$36.10 in January 2008 to $ 32.13 in October 2008.

d) Denim Imports:Mexico , China and Bangladesh remained the top three exporters of jeans to US in
2008.They exported (till September 2009) the following million units of jeans :
Mexico – 92.8 million units
China – 55.6 million units
Bangladesh – 39.1 million units
Egypt – 23.4 million units
Hongkong – 23.2 million units
Out of these, Bangaldesh had the lowest average price of jeans exported – $5.07 against
a world average export price of $ 7.45

Going by these figures and previous reports coming in regarding denim consumption in the US, we get the indications that the consumption of denim/jeans would perhaps not experience the serious fall in consumption as expected in other clothing (esp fashion products) items. The reason is clear – consumers want to invest in jeans as – it lasts longer, can be worn at wide variety of occasions, offers wide price ranges and remains its fashion appeal. Will we see the market share of some clothing items cannabalised by
Jeans ?.
Another lesson , oft repeated, for jeans producers is that FIT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT factor consumers . Identify your target consumers and give them the best fits possible.Though quality of denim, wash, brand name all are important, they are secondary to THE FIT ..

Download the full report on denim jeans consumption in US here – right click and ‘Save link as’

Exports of Mens/Boys jeans from India and Bangladesh to USA in 2006 and 2007

Source :US customs

From the figures given above , we can see that the exports of jeans from India registered a fall of 8% in the first quarter of 2007 compared to the first quarter of 2006. However, the second and the third quarter have seen a steady increase in exports of jeans to US inspite of the appreciation of rupee.
On the other hand, the exports from Bangladesh continue to register a robust increase in all the three quarters of 2007..Bangladesh,in any case, has a huge lead over India in exports of Jeans and it seems to be increasing the gap further.
What is interesting is that the exports from India have not registered a fall despite the huge appreciation of rupee. This signifies that the additional capacities of jeans manufacturing have been created in India and the increase in exports would have been very significant, had the rupee not appreciated so much.
However, the next 2 quarters would show whether the Indian companies can sustain the growth in exports despite rupee appreciation or not – though i believe that the exports may grow stably given the excess capacities available in the industry..

Source: The Customs Deptt of Japan

Note: The exchange rate of USD to Yen has been taken as the current rate of
121 Yen/USD

Major points to note :
a)Till the year 2000, EU and the US were almost neck to neck in terms of the prices of their fabrics.However, US was leading by a big margin in volumes.
b)The graph of USA started to fall from the year 2003 – when both prices and volumes fell sharply.
c)When we come to the year 2005 , we find that the US exports have become almost a trickle and even with these small volumes , the prices are less than 50% of that of EU prices.
d)However, EU has not been able to achieve the kind of volume exports that US was able to do in previous years – mainly because EU deals more in fashion items which are used in smaller quantities.

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