Abstract:After years of development, the mainland has the world's most complete industrial chain and the highest level of production and processing, and has become the world's blanket production base, and the blankets produced are mainly used for export. Customs data shows that the number of blankets exported by China in 2023 increased by 1.38% year-on-year to 792 million. In the future, while continuing to maintain its export advantages, the mainland blanket industry also needs to continue to innovate and progress to adapt to the changes and needs of the global market.
1. Definitions and Classification
Blanket is a commonly used bedding that has the function of keeping warm and is thinner than a quilt. Its raw materials are mostly made of animal fibers (such as wool, mohair, rabbit hair, cashmere, camel hair, yak hair) or chemical fibers such as acrylic fiber and viscose fiber, and some are made of animal fibers and chemical fibers. Blankets can be divided into double blankets, single blankets, children's blankets, etc., according to the classification of uses, can be divided into bed blankets, knee blankets, beach blankets, etc., according to the weaving methods, can be divided into woven blankets, tufted blankets, woven blankets, long-pile Raschel blankets (warp knitted blankets), short pile Raschel blankets (warp knitted blankets), acrylic blankets (weft knitted blankets) and double-layer velvet loom imitation Raschel blankets.
Second, industry policies
As a subdivision of the textile industry, in recent years, the state has issued a series of relevant policies for the textile industry, which not only provides a clear direction and strong support for the overall development of the textile industry, but also injects new vitality and opportunities into the development of the blanket industry. In April 2023, the Guangdong Provincial Energy Bureau issued the "Review Opinions on the Energy Conservation Report of the Project with an Annual Output of 28,000 Tons of Printing and Dyeing Knitted Fabrics of Dongtai Dyeing Industry (Zhongshan) Co., Ltd.", proposing to build a production line with an annual output of 28,000 tons of printing and dyeing knitted fabrics, the main buildings include workshops, guard rooms, basements, etc., and the main equipment includes hot air stenter setting machine, blanket pre-shrinking machine, singeing machine, blanket pre-shrinking machine, dyeing machine, mercerizing machine, flat width dryer, air compressor, etc. In December 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four departments issued the "Implementation Plan for the Quality Improvement and Upgrading of the Textile Industry (2023-2025)", proposing that by 2025, substantial progress will be made in the construction of a modern textile industry system, the operating income of textile enterprises above designated size will increase steadily, the quality and efficiency of development will remain at a good level, and the international dominant position of the textile industry will be further consolidated and improved. The innovation ability has been continuously enhanced, and the R&D investment intensity of textile enterprises above designated size has reached 1.3%.
Third, the development process
The development of the mainland blanket industry has gone through four stages, namely the embryonic stage from 1980 to 1990, the initial stage from 1990 to 1997, the development and growth stage from 1997 to 2000 and the transformation and upgrading stage from 2000 to the present. In the early 80s of the 20th century, the state-owned manufacturers of Raschel blankets represented by Guangdong Meiya, Mudanjiang Blanket Factory, Daqing Blanket Factory, etc., introduced more than 20 automatic production lines from Japan, began the upgrading of Chinese blanket products, and gradually replaced the previous wool blanket with Raschel blanket. In 1997, Hebei Baoding Meiya Textile Co., Ltd. took the lead in building a factory in the north and began the production of acrylic blankets, within three years, dozens of blanket factories were built in Lixian, Gaoyang and Anxin counties in Baoding region, and developed rapidly, forming a large-scale production base, and the output jumped to the forefront of the country, occupying most of the domestic market share, making coastal manufacturers turn to foreign exports. After entering the 21st century, the raw materials of mainland blankets have gradually shifted from acrylic to polyester, the process has improved very rapidly, and the share of foreign markets is increasing, and the blanket industry in Japan, South Korea, Hungary and other countries is gradually declining. Acrylic blanket manufacturers by manual platen printing, gradually changed to automatic flat screen printing, product quality and quantity are improving rapidly, such as Zhejiang's true love, Shandong's Shenghao, etc., all have an annual production capacity of about 20,000 tons of finished products.
Fourth, industry barriers
1. Customer resource barriers
Blanket products are personalized consumer products, customers in different regions have personalized needs for blankets in terms of flower shape, color, weight, suede texture, etc., so domestic and foreign customers often cooperate with blanket suppliers to carry out personalized development to ensure the stable sales of terminal products. Large-scale customers often have a strict supplier assessment system, before the cooperative relationship is determined, domestic and foreign customers will conduct a "factory inspection" audit of the blanket supplier, including the level of technical technology, research and development capabilities, product quality, on-time delivery capabilities and corporate reputation. Only blanket manufacturers that have passed the audit can officially enter their supply chain list. Once it enters its supplier system, the cooperative relationship is relatively stable and generally does not change easily. Therefore, customer resources are one of the barriers faced by new entrants to the blanket industry.
2. Technical barriers
Customers of blanket products have higher requirements for the fluff density, suede texture, pattern and color fastness of the finished product. Different products require different technical and process parameters for the R&D and production of blankets, such as felts of different thicknesses and materials, which require different printing and dyeing strength, dye concentration, and different evaporation temperature, time and other process parameters. At the same time, in order to improve production efficiency and product quality, enterprises in the blanket industry often need to spend a long time to improve the process in order to achieve higher speed and precision production capacity, which is often reflected in the key technologies mastered by each blanket enterprise. Therefore, new entrants to the blanket industry face high technical barriers.
3. Scale barriers
The scale effect of the blanket industry is obvious, and blanket enterprises need to form a larger scale of products to reduce the unit cost of products to ensure the profit margins of blanket enterprises. Since both the early construction and the later operation require a large amount of fixed asset investment, whether a certain customer scale can be formed will directly affect the profitability of the blanket enterprise. For new enterprises entering the blanket industry, the early investment and later operation first need to consume a lot of capital, and it takes a certain amount of time to form a large-scale operation, so its profitability can not be guaranteed in the short term, and even continuous losses, and eventually will be squeezed out of the market by the large-scale operation of the blanket enterprises in the competition through the advantages of product cost, quality and operating efficiency. Therefore, the requirement of large-scale and low-cost production and operation is one of the barriers to entering the blanket industry.
4. Financial barriers
Blanket manufacturers need a lot of capital investment in the process of production and operation. In the procurement process, because upstream polyester fiber suppliers generally adopt the sales policy of payment before delivery, enterprises in the blanket industry need to hold more working capital to ensure the stable supply of raw materials. In order to meet the needs of customers in a timely manner, blanket enterprises often need to introduce industry-leading production lines, especially many machines and equipment with high degree of automation and superior performance, and the procurement, maintenance and update of equipment need to bear huge financial pressure.
Fifth, the industrial chain
1. Analysis of the industry chain
The upstream of the blanket industry chain is mainly the raw materials for the production of blankets, including wool, acrylic fiber, polyester fiber, viscose fiber, etc.; the middle of the industrial chain is mainly the manufacture of blankets; the downstream of the industrial chain is the sales of blankets, mainly including shopping malls, supermarkets, brand stores, e-commerce platforms, and finally sold to end consumers.
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