The official US apparel import data is out and, as predicted, the country has upped its import value tremendously in 2021 as compared to 2020.
Noting 27.36 per cent Y-o-Y surge, USA imported US $ 81.59 billion worth of apparels during 2021, while the import values in 2020 were just US $ 64.06 billion – as per OTEXA.
In volume terms, the apparel imports grew 27.42 per cent to 29,471.79 million SME in 2021 as against 23,128.83 million SME in 2020.
Particularly in December ’21, the imports reached US $ 7.30 billion, growing by over 51 per cent on yearly basis.
The import data is well justified with the official apparel retail sales in USA that reached US $ 198 billion during 2021, as per the latest US Census Bureau. The data reflects 47 per cent Y-o-Y growth in 2021 over 2020 and 1.50 per cent growth over 2019.
The growth in the US apparel imports can be attributed to normalcy that the consumer market witnessed in 2021, especially the latter half, as consumers didn’t refrain from spending money on clothing products during holiday season after almost two years of market drought due to pandemic.
However, despite considerable growth in 2021, the import values remained below par and couldn’t surpass 2019’s figures when USA had imported US $ 83.70 billion worth of apparels.
