You can read the Gildan press release here.

Somewhat surprisingly sales for Gildan were up 6% in activewear for the second quarter compared to last year. Part of that they say is from a “favourable mix driven by higher replenishment of fleece by North American distributors ahead of peak selling season. Furthermore, strong activewear sales in the quarter reflected continued market share gains in key growth categories, including fleece and ring spun products.” There are some nuggets in all of this to digest.

• The doom and gloom one hears about sales while perhaps having some basis in fact, is not that terrible if Gildan sales are up
• There must be some optimism there because distributors aren’t stocking up on fleece if they think things are going to tank, and they all spend a lot more time and energy figuring those things out than most of us do
• Gildan has dominated the open end traditional t-shirt market now for a long time, to the detriment of Fruit of the Loom and Hanes who once had that market. Clearly now they are going after the fleece and the ring spun cotton markets, I’m sure not new news but not seen as good news for the players in that space.

Also we know that Gildan reaps many economic advantages  by operating out of Barbados, and nothing has changed there as this earnings report mentions income tax changes by Barbados which greatly benefited Gildan.

So are we going to rebound quickly from the slowing in the industry? Gildan puts its chips in on a “no” for that. They predict modest single digit increases for this year but their three year situation they say is rosy.

They report their innerwear (socks and underwear) business isn’t going that well, their explanation frankly didn’t make that much sense to me. They gave up on Under Armor and that was the biggest reason they say, but also say it is do to an “unfavourable mix and continued broader market weakness in innerwear.”  Hanes sold off Champion and has stated clearly they are concentrating on innerwear, so maybe that is good news for Hanes that Gildan isn’t doing that great in the sock and underwear business.

Notably absent in this report was any mention of the retirement of Chamandy or of the huge acquisition Chamandy was perhaps planning, both of which were reported as the reasons for his earlier ouster. We have not heard the last on those topics one presumes.

For the average screen printer what does this mean? The economic sky is not falling, there should be plenty of fleece around this winter, and business pretty much continues as usual.