India’s market share in home textile exports to the US in October has increased one percentage point from the year ago to 33 per cent.This is the second consecutive month of market share gains.

The gains come after a period of business disruption. Transition to the online marketplace and the resultant reorganisation at traditional retailers had led to inventory destocking. This impacted the sales of Indian textile exporters. The impact was accentuated by the reduction in duty drawback rates for most textile product categories under GST.

But heading into 2019, some of these headwinds are already easing. One is the recovery in export volumes. After a weak start in 2018, India’s exports to the US in terry towels and cotton sheets showed a year on year growth of 24.2 per cent and 7.2 per cent in the past three months.

Another is the revision of the duty drawback rates. The increase of duty drawback up to 0.6 percentage points across home textile products and the rupee depreciation are a welcome relief to the textile space.

This will help exporters claim more incentives, strengthening their competitive advantage.

Yet another key variable is cotton prices which began easing. The softening of headwinds should aid companies’ earnings in 2019.