Antai Textile: 32 Years of Accumulation Weaves a 'Web of Certainty' in the Acrylic Fiber Market, Steadily Supporting the Industry Amid Turbulence
At 7:30 in the morning, as the morning light in Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone just spilled over the red-brick walls of Antai Textile's factory, Li Xiong, the Marketing Manager, had already walked into the Production Department's office building with a stack of reports. Factory Director Huang of the Production Department was staring intently at the flickering numbers on the workshop's central control screen—on the left side of the screen, the energy consumption data of the three acrylic top production lines had decreased by another 0.3 percentage points compared to last week; on the right side, a batch of newly produced peacock blue colored acrylic top was being transported to the quality inspection area by AGV carts. This batch was a rush order added by a well-known knitwear brand in Zhejiang, requiring delivery within three days.
"Director Huang, the latest data just received shows that the spot price fluctuation of acrylic yarn in East China reached 3.2% last week, hitting a new weekly high this year," Li Xiong spread the report on the conference table, his finger crossing a news summary marked "Crude oil prices fell 1.8% within 24 hours after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement took effect". "But downstream traders have instead increased their stockpiles by 15%, all betting on whether Jilin Chemical Fiber's 40% production capacity will have problems."
Director Huang picked up a pen and circled the edge of the report: "We just adjusted the third-quarter production plan last week, reducing the production capacity of regular acrylic yarn by 10%, and allocating all the freed-up capacity to colored acrylic top and fancy yarn. Look at this batch of peacock blue; the customer wants 'Morandi color system + anti-pilling technology'—our R&D investment two years ago wasn't in vain." He was referring to the "Color Laboratory" that Antai Textile invested 20 million yuan to build in 2023, which can now complete the process from color card customization to small-batch trial production within 168 hours, cutting the industry average cycle in half.
As a textile veteran rooted in Zhangjiagang since 1993, Antai Textile has witnessed three crude oil price surges and two global economic downturns. From its initial single acrylic yarn production line to now being a full-range supplier covering acrylic yarn, acrylic top, colored acrylic top, and more than ten types of fancy yarns such as chenille and slub yarn, it relies precisely on this ability to "find certainty amid fluctuations". In the first half of this year, when the Israel-Hamas conflict pushed up crude oil prices and the cost of acrylic raw materials rose by 22% year-on-year, Antai's orders for colored acrylic top instead grew by 35% against the trend—downstream clothing brands, in order to avoid the price fluctuation risks of solid-color fabrics, have turned to color-customized products. Antai's pre-emptively deployed "dope dyeing" technology can increase the color fastness of colored acrylic top by 4 grades and reduce production costs by 800 yuan per ton compared to traditional dyeing processes.
"The news from Jilin Chemical Fiber is not yet confirmed, but our customers know what's what," Li Xiong turned to the customer feedback page of the report, which was densely filled with recent customer communication records: a leading sock manufacturer in Fujian increased its quarterly order quantity from 800 tons to 1200 tons, specifically noting "priority guarantee for colored acrylic top supply"; a local home textile enterprise in Jiangsu even reserved 30% of its raw material warehouse space for Antai's fancy yarns. "At the Shanghai Fabric Exhibition last week, a European buyer told me that they would rather bear a 5% price premium to sign a long-term order with us, just because we haven't stopped supply for a single day in 32 years, from the 2008 financial crisis to the 2020 pandemic."
As they were talking, Director Huang's phone rang; it was the workshop director calling: "Director Huang, the newly renovated No. 3 acrylic yarn production line has reduced energy consumption by another 0.2 percentage points. Based on the current crude oil price, we can save 120 yuan in cost per ton!" After hanging up the phone, Director Huang smiled and said to Li Xiong: "The intelligent transformation investment at the beginning of the year wasn't in vain; the three lines can save nearly 10 million yuan in costs a year. Now raw material prices change every day—every cent we save gives customers an extra cent of confidence."
Outside the window, a truck loaded with acrylic top was slowly driving out of the factory area, and the slogan on the truck body—"Antai Textile: 32 Years of Focus on Acrylic Quality"—was particularly clear in the morning light. Li Xiong looked at the data on the report: "July fancy yarn pre-sales volume increased by 40% year-on-year", and suddenly remembered what the former president of the industry association had said during a chat last week: "The market storms have never been small, but the real ability is to turn storms into sails."
At this moment, Antai Textile is using 32 years of industry accumulation, continuously iterated technological processes, and acute capture of market demand to weave the uncertainties of the acrylic fiber market into a "web of certainty" leading to a broader future. For downstream customers, this may be the most reliable answer in a volatile market—when price curves fluctuate up and down, there are always enterprises that adhere to quality and innovation, steadily supporting the industry.