India seems to have appeared as a major game changer in kidswear exports to USA in recently released apparel trade statistics by OTEXA. The country clocked US $ 157.86 million from kidswear exports to USA during January to October ’18 period, growing at the rate of 6.52 per cent.
In volume-terms, India experienced surge of 16.53 per cent and shipped 7.94 million kg worth of kidswear in the US market. What makes this performance of India worth appreciating is the fact that, during the 10-month period, USA managed to grow only by 1.33 per cent in volumes and 2.10 per cent in kidswear import values which is quite low as compared to India’s escalation in its respective export.
Simultaneously, all top Asian exporting nations fell down in their respective value-wise exports in kidswear segment to USA. China, Bangladesh and Vietnam dwindled by 3.23 per cent, 2.50 per cent and 2.52 per cent respectively and the declining trend of these countries helped India capture shift especially from China which caters to 47 per cent of kidswear demand in USA.
Markedly, India emerged as the only country which increased its value-wise share, while all other countries declined their share on y-o-y basis. Refer following table to understand it better:
| S. No. | Country | Share in overall kidswear import by USA (in value-terms) | |
| Jan.-Oct. ’17 | Jan.-Oct. ’18 | ||
| 1 | China | 45.67% | 43.29% |
| 2 | Bangladesh | 10.52% | 10.05% |
| 3 | Vietnam | 10.55% | 10.07% |
| 4 | India | 7.63% | 7.97% |
| 5 | Indonesia | 4.92% | 4.50% |
| Data Source: OTEXA | |||
| Prepared by: Apparel Resources | |||
On the other hand, tantalising see-saw battle can be seen between Vietnam and Bangladesh in kidswear export to USA during the review period. Vietnam managed to ship apparels worth US $ 199.68 million, while Bangladesh was quite close to Vietnam’s figures and tapped US $ 199.17 million. If this trend continues, India is expected to surpass both Bangladesh and Vietnam in next 6 months to become the second largest kidswear supplier to USA after China.
