Antai Textile: Insights into Market Opportunities, Weaving a Stable New Chapter in the Textile Industry with 'Dual-Drive'
In Zhangjiagang in July, the summer heat is rising, but the production workshop of Antai Textile is in an orderly bustle. Li Xiong, the Marketing Manager, had just put down the weekly acrylonitrile market report. His fingertips tapped gently on the entry "Shandong Haijiang's 130,000-ton plant temporarily shut down for maintenance" before picking up the phone to call Factory Director Huang from the Production Department: "Brother Huang, regarding this round of changes in the raw material end, we need to go through the details of the 'flexible reserve + process optimization' plan we adjusted last week again."
On the other end of the phone, Factory Director Huang was staring at the fluctuating parameters on the workshop's central control screen, with the steady roar of machines running in the background. "Don't worry, Manager Li," he said confidently. "Upon receiving the news of Shandong Haijiang's maintenance last week, we contacted Lihuayi. Coincidentally, their quotation dropped by 50 yuan/ton to 7,900 yuan/ton. The Purchasing Department has locked in a batch of spot goods, which is enough to support half a month of high-load production. In addition, the Technical Department has evaluated the commissioning of Jilin Petrochemical's new 260,000-ton plant at the end of the month. Once the raw material supply increases in the future, the production cost of our acrylic top can be reduced by another 1.2 percentage points."
Behind this conversation lies Antai Textile's industry sensitivity accumulated over more than 30 years. When it took root in Zhangjiagang in 1993, the company was just a small workshop focusing on acrylic yarn production; today, it has grown into a comprehensive textile enterprise covering acrylic yarn, acrylic top, colored acrylic top, and fancy yarn, with annual production capacity ranking among the top in East China. "To stand firm amid industry fluctuations, we rely on walking on two legs: 'raw material end prediction + product end innovation,'" Li Xiong often tells his team.
Take the subtle changes in the acrylonitrile market this time: on one hand, the short-term supply contraction caused by Shandong Haijiang's maintenance has slightly increased inventory from 42,800 tons to 45,800 tons; on the other hand, the long-term expectation of the upcoming release of Jilin Petrochemical's new production capacity, coupled with Lihuayi's price reduction, the market is in a window period transitioning from "tight balance" to "loose". Instead of waiting passively, Antai Textile quickly launched a "two-way strategy" — in the short term, ensuring cost control by locking in low-price raw materials and optimizing production scheduling (such as temporarily reducing the capacity of conventional acrylic yarn with high raw material consumption by 5%); in the long term, aiming at the changes in raw material structure after Jilin Petrochemical's commissioning, and layouts high-value-added products in advance.
"Look at this batch of newly produced colored acrylic top," Factory Director Huang took Li Xiong to the quality inspection area and picked up a roll of indigo yarn. "Last week, our old customer from Zhejiang added an order for 200 tons, precisely because our color fastness can reach above level 4.5, and our color matching response speed is 3 days faster than our peers." Colored acrylic top is exactly Antai's "flagship product" in recent years. Through the independently developed "dope dyeing" process, it eliminates the high-energy consumption环节 of traditional dyeing, not only leading in environmental indicators but also meeting the flexible demand of clothing brands for "small batches and multiple colors". Facing the possible acrylic price fluctuations in July (uncertain factors such as crude oil and tariffs), such high-value-added products have precisely become the "risk-resistant shield" — customers are less price-sensitive to them and instead value quality stability more.
In the fancy yarn workshop, several imported winding machines are twisting fluffy acrylic fibers into "slub yarn", which is a new fabric raw material developed for a northern sports brand this year. "What they want is this kind of 'rough yet delicate' texture, which traditional yarn cannot achieve," Li Xiong said with a smile. "Our R&D team spent three months adjusting parameters to combine the elasticity of acrylic with the structure of fancy yarn, and now orders for this yarn have been scheduled until September." From a single acrylic yarn to today's "basic + custom" combination, the proportion of high-value-added products in Antai Textile's product matrix has increased from 30% five years ago to 65%. Behind this is an annual R&D investment of no less than 3% of revenue and a technical team composed of more than 20 textile engineers.
"The market is always changing, but the logic of 'anchoring on customer demand' will never change," Li Xiong looked at the containers in the yard outside the workshop, which were about to be shipped to Guangzhou and contained acrylic yarn rushed for a fast fashion brand — thanks to the advance prediction of acrylonitrile production capacity changes, the delivery cycle of this batch of goods was shortened by two days compared with the contract. From the first strand of yarn in 1993 to now serving more than 200 brand customers at home and abroad, Antai Textile has always maintained a steady pace in the wave of the textile industry. As Factory Director Huang often says: "We people from Zhangjiagang believe in 'steady and solid progress', but stability is not about being conservative; it's about making predictions in advance and holding quality in our hands — so that no matter how the market fluctuates, we can give customers a 'reassurance'."
The July wind blows through the camphor trees in the factory area, carrying the unique soft smell of acrylic fibers. For Antai Textile, this is not only a transition period for the alternation of old and new production capacities in the acrylonitrile market but also a critical period for the enterprise to deepen from "scale-driven" to "value-driven". And the yarn flowing in the workshop is weaving a new story of symbiosis and common prosperity between an established textile enterprise and the industry.