Hats and Caps - A Growing Market

According to the Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (GIA) The Consumers’ changing sun protective behavior and attitudes such as wearing clothes and shades that prevent sunburns, is helping drive demand for sun protective hats and caps. The market is also expected to benefit from the growing levels of fashion-consciousness among both men and women. While women constitute the traditional customer cluster for hats, caps and millinery, a large number of men are also sporting luxury branded hats to keep pace with changing fashion trends.
 
The United States of America is the biggest market for these types of products. The average number of baseball hats sold each year is 43,750,000 and the annual industry revenue is $2,153,000,000.
 
                                                                                          
Asia Pacific is forecast to spearhead future growth in the market with the fastest CAGR of 4.6% over the analysis period. Strong GDP growth in emerging nations like China and India, growing base of affluent middle class population, rising fashion consciousness, and availability of a wider range of product choices in terms of colors, fabric, and styles, are factors driving growth in the region. China is emerging into a major market, spurred by rapid urbanization and westernization of lifestyles.
 
Based on a research of China Energy Group, China is the world’s top textile exporter with 40% of world textile and clothing exports. The textile and clothing industry is the largest manufacturing industry in China with about 24,000 enterprises. China is the largest clothing producer in the world and has the largest production capacity for textile products consisting of cotton, manmade fibers and silk.
 
For these reasons, the global market for caps and hats is growing so fast that is projected to reach more than US$7.7 billion by the year 2020.

Source:  http://www.strategyr.com/pressMCP-6275.asp
      https://china.lbl.gov/research-projects/textile-industry