Clothing, footwear spends shrank 7.1% in FY24

Indian households' spending on 'clothing and footwear' plunged to a three-year low and a tad under pre-pandemic levels in 2023-24, as per disaggregated national accounts numbers released by the National Statistical Office.

- SHIVA RAJORA

This marked the second straight year of contraction in such spending after a 1.4 per cent drop recorded through 2022-23 (FY23), and economists termed it a reflection of consumers cutting back on discretionary demand amid a period of high inflation and stagnating wages.

Expenditure on the 'clothing and footwear' segment fell by over 7 per cent to just under ₹4.53 trillion in FY24 from ₹4.87 trillion in FY23. Those spends were 0.1 per cent lower than 2019-20, when Indians purchased clothing and footwear worth a little over ₹4.53 trillion. The Covid-19 pandemic that scuppered economic activity, had dragged clothing and footwear spends down 15 per cent in 2020-21.