India's socks capacity may restrict exports

US orders for socks could find a way into India, following the US embargo on imports from China. Can the Indian socks industry take advantage of this scenario? Reena Mital finds out.

Textile safeguards against China have raised the hopes of the Indian textile exporters. And in fact, apparel exporters have started receiving higher orders for certain products.

However, this may not happen in case of socks exports, where China is facing an embargo from the United States. It may be recalled that the US had recently imposed an embargo on socks imports from China, which according to reports, will be stuck at US ports till November 29.

Speaking to Express Textile, Mr C Y Pal, chairman, Renfro India Pvt Ltd, the largest socks manufacturer in the country, said, “India’s capacities are not so huge as to be able to service voluminous orders. There are just 3-4 socks exporters in the country that meet international quality standards.” India’s present exports of socks is around Rs 50 crore per annum, which could go up to Rs 100 crore within the next two years.

India has a lot of socks manufacturers, but most of them in the small scale sector, in Ludhiana, Amritsar, etc, where quality is not very good. Most of these socks are supplied in the domestic market through unorganised retailing. “Typically, each unit would have not more than 20-30 knitting machines, which gives an idea of the production capacity per unit. This has been a decentralised industry, in large part due to the government policy of SSI reservation. The sector was dereserved very recently, and we hope to see some larger capacities coming up in the years to come. In the present situation, there are hardly any national brands in socks. Most of the apparel and sportswear brands in the country that also have accessories such as socks in their product portfolios, source the same from the smaller but better units,” said Mr Pal.

Renfro is a North Carolina based socks company, the largest in the world, which is now setting up manufacturing bases in low-cost countries, including India, Pakistan, China, Turkey, and has a distribution company in Europe. “The focus is mainly on exports, though there are plans to enter the domestic market too. Our exports this year would be to the tune of Rs 30 crore, which we expect to increase to Rs 50-60 crore within the next one year to 18 months.” The company supplies to some of the largest European retailers such as Tesco, Decathlon, Wal-Mart, etc.

The company has 330 knitting machines, and is in the process of installing another 170 machines by the end of this year. As against this, most of the other exporters have less than 100 machines. The company is mainly into manufacturing and exports of dress socks, though it does some amounts of sports socks too.

According to Mr Pal, “The socks market within the country too has not been tapped. It is only over the last one year or so that there is some attention paid to quality. And customers have also started demanding quality products. However, the disorganised market and unbranded socks cater to a major portion of the market in the country.”

Industry experts point out that not many socks manufacturers are increasing capacities to any significant extent, neither are new players entering the market. Says Mr Pal, “There is definitely an opportunity for India if embargoes and other safeguards are imposed against Chinese socks imports to the US. However, buyers will not shift all their orders to India, even as they may increase sourcing to some extent. There are many other strong socks manufacturers such as Pakistan, Turkey, Mexico, Egypt, and these will certainly be big gainers following the embargo on China’s socks exports to the US.”