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Icra in its latest report has said that home textile exporters are set to clock a 20-25 per cent growth in current financial year (FY22) with healthy margins. The pandemic-induced lifestyle changes stemming from heightened consciousness about hygiene and increased prevalence of stay-at-home options are likely to result in a robust performance for Indian home textile exporters. For the past three quarters, sales for the sample set have averaged 25-40 per cent higher than the 3-year average for the pre-COVID period.

Icra Senior Vice President and Co-Group Head, Corporate Sector Ratings, Pavethra Ponniah said home textile exports was one of the first few textile segments to recover from the impact of the pandemic last fiscal, with companies reverting to year-on-year growth from the second quarter of FY21 itself and reporting three consecutive quarters of double-digit growth thereafter. She noted the export demand has been mainly driven by the US, the largest market, accounting for 60 per cent of India's home textile exports.

Compared to a 9 per cent increase in India's home textile product exports of $5.7 billion in FY21, exports to the US increased by 14 per cent, while exports to the other major markets of the UK and the EU reported a y-o-y decline during the year. She added besides faster opening up, increase in exports to the US is partly attributable to the distribution model for these products, with a meaningful share accounted for by the large departmental chains that remained open even during the lockdown phase.