Housing boom to spur hometex market

Boom in housing as a result of the burgeoning middle class in India is a major growth driver for the home textile market. Change in lifestyle and growing awareness of hygiene is fuelling this growth. An ITJ report bares some details.

Around the 3-km stretch of Ghodbunder Road, one of the fast-developing areas with booming realty projects mushrooming in Thane, a suburb of Mumbai, there were just a couple of shops selling upholstery & curtains for homes a few years back. Today, the area is dotted with more than a dozen shops palpably colourful sporting a variety of curtains & upholstery in fascinating colours and designs to attract the middle-class consumers. The housing boom is spreading to even Tier-II and Tier-III cities, with the demand for home textile ever growing at a faster rate all over India.

The home textiles market in India is estimated to be $17 billion and is growing at over 9 per cent annually. The home textiles and furnishings market is expected to reach $26.6 billion by 2015. Some key growth drivers for this market are: Growth in the number of households and discretionary incomes, and growth of end-use sectors like housing, office, hospitality and healthcare. The unorganised sector dominates this market. Less than 10 per cent of the market is organised, and thus there´s a huge opportunity for organised players to grow.

Dr P Nayak, Secretary, Textiles Committee, shares some statistics on the home textile market in India and abroad. According to him, home textiles export in the world, during 2013, was reported at $55.79 billion and its share around 8.67 per cent of the total textiles and clothing exports of the world. The major exporter of home textiles in the world is China controlling around 48 percent of the total exports followed by India which is way behind China by catering to only 8.45 per cent of the total export market. China has recorded a CAGR of 13.17 per cent during the last decade and India has witnessed 9.89 per cent CAGR.

India is globally well-known for its wide variety and exquisite designs in home textiles & furnishing fabrics. Within the country, with a big boom in housing and growing affordability of Indian consumers, the demand has been growing by a healthy 30-40% per annum. Not only India is home for some of the world´s biggest producers like Welspun (third largest towel producer) and Dicitex (Fifth largest furnishing fabrics producer). Many Indian brands like Indian Drape, RR Décor, F & F, Maspar, Goldtex, ABN, Portico New York, Birla Century, Spread, Swayam, MYCK, Zyneand Super Net are recognised nationally and are growing constantly.

Speaking about the home textiles market in India,
S Rajendran, Vice President, Textile Engineering ´ Processing & ETP, A.T.E. Enterprises, said, ´The home textile business in India is doing well at the moment and many of the existing players have handful of orders. Most of the existing units are going in for expansion of production especially in case of bed sheets and terry towel. After a long gap, new projects are coming up for home textile production which indicates that the business is on an upward trend. While few players are doing extremely well on home furnishing fabrics, we expect this segment will grow further in the near future.´

Rajendran added, ´For processing of home textiles, A.T.E can offer a complete package of machineries for wet finishing, dyeing, printing and finishing from our Principals like´ Osthoff, Goller, Monforts/Monfongs, Ramisch Guarneri and Zimmer. We do also represent Lacom, Germany, which is well known in the global market for coating and lamination. Home textile market is getting into digital printing and special finishes for higher value addition. We are representing Zimmer´s digital printing machine and we have created good references in India. Also Zimmer is well known for its coating machine which is bei