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If we look at the figures below, we will find that US market has actually declined marginally in terms of denim apparel imports. From 474 million pcs in 2014 it went down to 469 million pcs. These are figures that the denim market will not be too enthused about!

The average price also seems be on declining trend which is probably a good sign for the market. In the year 2012 the average price was US$ 8.14 per pc while in 2015 it reduced to US$ 7.99 per pc. However, this can be termed as a marginal change over 2014.

Men’s Jeans

In the year 2012 the imports of Men Jeans from the world to USA was 263.76 million Pcs with an average price of US$8.33 which reduced to US$8.16 with an import of 269.38 million pcs in 2013. In the year 2014 and 2015 the import figure saw a decline both in quantity as well as in average prices. In 2014 where import quantity was 256.24 million pcs, while in 2015 it reduced to 250.02 million pcs. So the actual imports of men’s jeans declined by over 3% since 2014 and over 7% since 2013.

Women’s Jeans

The import of women’s jeans also peaked out in 2013 when the country imported bout 245 million pcs. In 2014 the imports were 217 million pcs which was a whopping reduction of over 11%! 2015 however saw a marginal increase of about 1% – which cannot be said to be a very encouraging figure. The average price is almost stable from US$ 7.89 in 2014 to US$ 7.87 in 2015. The prices, we can say, are more or less stable sine 2012 – a sign that the country is able to manage to balance its import prices from around the world.

So far as the top exporting countries are concerned, China is still leading the charts with whopping 133.13 million pcs in 2015 while Mexico ranks second with 110.02 million pcs. China is able to give an average price of about US$ 7.52 while Mexico’s average price is US$8.74. However, considering that there is no import duty on imports of garments from Mexico (made with US fabrics); the price will come out more or less same. But China gives much more fashionable products to US than Mexico – which is focused on basics. Bangladesh ranks 3rd with the lowest average price per jeans which is merely US$6.53. Pakistan comes 4^the with a total of about 21 million pcs and Vietnam is at 5th with total export quantity of 19.13 million pcs at an average price of US$8.48.  It needs to be seen where the share of China will spill off once the country is not able to export as much it used to.

% Change in the imports from the year 2014 to 2015

Exporting Regions :

There are many regions and blocs which can be studied as a group to analyse which region is more important for exporting denim to US. Some of the main regions are Latin America, Asean, Agoa , Cafta etc. We analyse the figures from these countries as below.

Latin America is the highest contributor in the total import to the USA with total import quantity of 135.91 million pcs followed by ASEAN, AGOA and CAFTA with 48.74, 22.27 and 20.7 million pcs. Latin America – the main component is Mexico which takes the lion’s share of its exports. Among ASEAN countries, Vietnam is very important. AGOA still remains a small quantity and has not evolved over time despite duty benefits.

On the whole, not a very good year for denim apparel imports for the US market. It is still sluggish but there are hopes that 2016 will be better.

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Figures of Imports of Jeans into USA in 2007 and 2008

Source:US customs

These figures seem to defy logic as we get continuous reports of falling consumption levels in US esp since the first quarter of 2008 showed reduced imports and we have seen the growth come only in 2nd and 3rd quarters. But we still have one quarter left in 2008 and we might see some fall here. Another possibilty is that the imports of cheaper denims might be slowly replacing that of more expensive ones and it might be causing some shift in volumes to the former category and affecting overall volumes positively. But I am sure that in the coming quarters we will see some impact of the recession on the imports of Jeans into US..

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US Denim imports in 2007 & 2006