Cotton Yarn is manufactured by processing cotton fiber. India produces yarn of wide range of counts (a measure of linear density), which varies from 2 to 120 and mainly dominated by cotton made yarn.

Spun yarns are used worldwide in a wide range of textiles, apparel and other manufactured products. With a total output of 28 million tons, spun yarns satisfy more than half the needs of the global textile and clothing industry.

Spun yarn market is growing well. Between 2000 and 2010 the demand for spun yarns worldwide is forecast to rise by almost 25%.

Growth will not be evenly spread. Spinning capacity is increasingly shifting towards developing economies as investors install new machinery in lower cost regions. Asian countries in particular stand to benefit the most in the medium term.

In developed and newly industrialized countries, spinners are highly vulnerable to gr owing imports of "downstream" textiles and apparel. Spinners also face growing competition from filament yarns and nonwovens.

Major players in textile are China, India, Pakistan, USA, Turkey, Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, Egypt, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, European Union and Mauritius.

The Textile and Clothing Industry is the largest and prominent sector in Indian economy in terms of manufacturing, foreign exchange earnings and employment generation.

In 2005, spun yarn market size was around Rs 35000 crore with total production of 3100 million kgs. Out of which, cotton yarn had 69% market share in terms of value, blended (cotton and non cotton fiber) yarn had 19% market share in terms of value. So, total share of cotton and cotton-blended yarn was 88%. 100% non-cotton yarn market was very low having market share just 12%.

Cotton yarn is one of the biggest export commodity having total export of around 450 million Kg in 2005, in terms of v alue, it was around 6000 crore.

India is also biggest yarn exporter in world having global yarn export market share of 17%. India mainly exports to China, Korea Republic, Bangladesh, Egypt, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey, Japan, Israel, European Union and Mauritius.