Which footwear categories resisted better to the hit of COVID-19?

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic by the end of 2019 and its dissemination across the globe earlier in the current year has had a massive impact in the footwear industry. In the first six months of 2020, global footwear exports have fallen almost a third (-31.1%) compared with similar period in the previous year.

All types of footwear experienced export declines in excess of 25% in the first semester of 2020, ranging from 26.8%, for waterproof footwear, to 41.2%, in the case of other footwear (which only represented 2.2% of total exports).

In absolute terms, leather footwear exports have fallen the most (-7 billion dollars). Textile footwear (-4.7 billion) and rubber and plastic footwear (-4.5 billion) were also severely hit but slightly increased their share of the world total at the expenses of leather’s.

About the Report

International Footwear Trade 1st Semester: The Impact of the Pandemic describes the evolution of footwear trade worldwide in the first semester of 2020, using the data available as of September 2020. The figures presented, both for the current and previous years, correspond only to the countries that had reported their trade statistics by that date. This leaves out some important players in the footwear trade scene, particularly some important Asian exporters but, in the previous year, the countries included in the report accounted for more than 90% of all footwear trade.