Global footwear production slowed down considerably last year, according to new data published in the 2024 World Footwear Yearbook.
In the report, which is compiled and published annually by the Portuguese footwear association APICCAPS, global shoe production decreased by 1.5 billion pairs, or 6 percent, to 22.4 billion pairs in 2023 – the lowest point in a decade when omitting the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
Overall, the report noted that the drop in production was due to a decline in consumption in key markets. This includes a decline of 749 million pairs in the United States, a drop of 398 million pairs in China and a decrease of 399 million pairs in the European Union.
What’s more, the report added that 14 billion pairs were exported worldwide in 2023, down by 9.1 percent over the previous year. There was also a 6.1 percent decline in the value of these exports last year to $168 million.
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The footwear industry also continues to be strongly concentrated in Asia where almost 9 out of every 10 pairs of shoes are manufactured, resulting in a share of 87.1 percent of the world total. On the contrary, Europe’s share fell slightly, to 12.8 percent, the report said.
China is the world’s largest footwear producer manufacturing 12.3 billion pairs in 2023 and capturing almost 55 percent of the global market share. India increased its share, now being accountable for 11.6 percent of the world total, the report showed.
In 2023, Asia’s consumption accounted for more than half (54.7 percent) of the worldwide total, an increase in the share registered for this continent in the previous year. Europe and North America followed with shares of 13.9 percent and 13.4 percent respectively.
It’s the same story for exports, with China accounting for 63.8 percent of all footwear exports in 2023, increasing 61.3 percent from 2022. Vietnam ranks a distant second at 9.5 percent, followed by Indonesia at 3.2 percent. These three countries taken together account for over three-quarters of worldwide footwear exports, the report said.
“Although the year 2023 has been particularly difficult for the footwear sector at an international level, the first solid signs of nearshoring are emerging,” Luís Onofre, president of APICCAPS, said in a statement. “This is clearly a good sign for our companies, which continue to invest and look for new business opportunities, even in a very difficult climate.”
According to APICCAPS, general data on each country has been retrieved from publicly available sources, namely IMF’s World Economic Outlook database, the World Bank’s World databank and the CIA Factbook. Other sources included Eurostat; the European Commission; the Portuguese government; AICEP Portugal Global; DGAE (The Portuguese Directorate General for Economic Activities); IAPMEI (the Portuguese Institute for SMEs and Innovation) and Programa Compete.
This new data comes after the Italian footwear industry experienced a sharp slowdown in the first quarter of 2024, according to the Confindustria Moda Research Centre for Assocalzaturifici, the national association representing Italian shoemakers.
In the first quarter of the year, the country’s shoe sector saw a 10.1 percent decline in sales compared to the same period in 2023. Declines were also seen with a 9.7 percent drop in total value of footwear exports and a 10.3 percent decrease in pairs exported in the quarter.
