Asia & Oceania tightened its grip on the world’s textile machinery trade in 2025, absorbing the overwhelming bulk of new equipment even as several major machine categories posted steep pullbacks.
Spinning technology was the bright spot of the year, while weaving, texturing, and knitting equipment broadly retreated.
Spinning: The growth engine
Short-staple spinning remained the industry’s most resilient segment. Worldwide, mills added roughly 195,000 new short-staple spindles, pushing the installed shipment total to 6.11 million units — a gain of just over 3%.
Asia and Oceania absorbed 95 cents of every dollar spent in this category, with regional orders climbing nearly 9% year over year.
China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan anchored the buying. Meanwhile Africa, Europe, and South America all retrenched sharply, and only North and Central America bucked the regional downturn, with orders more than tripling off a small base.
Open-end rotor spinning told a similar story of concentration: roughly 645,000 units shipped globally, an increase of about 50,000 machines.
Asia & Oceania again dominated, taking 94% of the total, powered by double-digit growth in Vietnam and solid gains in China and India.
“Two notable exceptions bucked the regional trend — Türkiye and Bangladesh saw rotor orders collapse,” a ITMF report informed.
Wool (long-staple) spinning was the segment’s clear laggard, with shipments sliding roughly 31% to around 90,000 spindles, dragged down by a steep pullback in Asian orders.
China, India, and Iran accounted for the lion’s share of what business remained.
Texturising and Weaving: Broad-Based Retreat
Draw-texturising equipment cooled across the board. Single-heater spindles, used primarily for polyamide yarns, fell over 20% to roughly 65,000 units, with China alone commanding over 90% of global orders.
Double-heater machines, the workhorse for polyester filament, dropped a similar amount to about 743,000 units — again with China dominating purchases.
Shuttle-less loom shipments contracted by roughly a quarter to around 164,000 machines, with every major loom type in decline.
Water-jet looms took the hardest hit, air-jet and rapier/projectile looms softened more modestly. China’s appetite for air-jet and water-jet technology cooled noticeably, while India bucked the trend, growing its rapier and projectile purchases by over 20%.
Knitting: China Still Calls the Shots
Large circular knitting machine shipments slipped about 13% to roughly 24,500 units, with China alone taking over half of global deliveries despite the overall downturn.
Flat knitting fared worse — electronic flat knitting machine shipments fell roughly 21% to about 106,000 units, driven almost entirely by a sharp Asian pullback, even as China’s own share of the shrinking pie rose to roughly two-thirds.
Finishing: A Rare Pocket of Strength
Finishing machinery bucked the broader slowdown, with combined shipments across the category rising. Stenters for continuous fabric finishing posted modest gains, while results were mixed elsewhere — mercerizing lines grew, singeing lines fell sharply.
In discontinuous fabric processing, overflow dyeing equipment saw a pullback, while air-jet and jigger/beam dyeing machinery both softened.
