Pakistan Just Shipped 22 Million Pairs of Shoes — But the Leather Story Is Complicated

Here’s a stat that deserves a double-take: Pakistan shipped 21.9 million pairs of shoes between July 2025 and May 2026. That’s a 24.84% increase in volume. Twenty. Four. Percent.

But if you think that means Pakistan’s leather footwear industry is booming — slow down. The numbers tell a more complicated story, and it’s one that matters for anyone tracking where the global footwear industry is heading.

The Volume vs. Value Puzzle

Twenty-two million pairs of shoes sounds like a lot. In terms of total export value, though, those shoes brought in $166.4 million — an increase of just 2.85% compared to the same period last year.

Think about that math for a second. Volume up nearly 25%, but value up less than 3%. That’s not a growth story. That’s a margin compression story. Pakistan is shipping way more shoes and getting barely more money for them.

The culprit? The “other footwear” segment — non-leather shoes, synthetic materials, cheaper constructions — grew 47.53% in volume to 13.67 million pairs. Value in this segment rose 24.03% to $42.33 million. These are lower-priced shoes dragging down the average.

Leather Footwear: Still King, But Losing Ground

Leather remains Pakistan’s most valuable footwear export category, bringing in $122.62 million — more than 73% of total footwear export value. But the trend is worrying. Leather footwear export earnings declined 2.31% year-on-year. Volume slipped 0.13% to 8.17 million pairs.

The decline is modest. Nobody should be panicking. But in an industry where growth is the expectation, even a small decline raises questions. Are Pakistani tanneries losing competitiveness? Is global demand for leather footwear softening? Or are buyers shifting to cheaper alternatives even within the leather category?

The canvas footwear segment is in even worse shape: exports plummeted 31.5% in volume and 32.56% in value to just $1.45 million. Canvas shoes are practically irrelevant to Pakistan’s export picture at this point.

The Bigger Leather Picture

Zoom out from footwear specifically, and you see the same pattern: tanned leather exports fell 4.49% year-on-year to $120.74 million. The broader leather manufacturing sector — which includes finished leather goods beyond footwear — grew slightly, up 2.69% to $535.78 million.

So the leather sector as a whole is treading water. Not collapsing. Not booming. Just… hanging in there.

Pakistan’s Place in the Global Order

Here’s the head-scratcher: Pakistan employs over 2 million people in footwear manufacturing and is one of the world’s largest producers by volume. Yet it ranks only 45th globally by export value according to the World Footwear Yearbook. Forty-fifth.

That gap between production volume and export value tells you everything about Pakistan’s position in the value chain. The country makes a lot of shoes, but not the kind that command premium prices. Domestic demand absorbs most production — the local market is valued at $5.8 billion and growing — leaving exports as a secondary channel.

China remains the top supplier to Pakistan’s domestic market, which adds another layer of complexity. Pakistan makes shoes, exports shoes, and imports shoes — sometimes all in the same category.

What Comes Next

The government has been offering incentives to boost the footwear sector, and global retailers are showing increased interest. But turning “interest” into “contracts” requires investments in quality, consistency, and compliance — the things that separate a $5 shoe from a $50 shoe.

For the leather segment specifically, the path forward is clear: move up the value chain. Better finishing. Better design. Better marketing. Pakistan can’t compete with Bangladesh on labor costs or with Italy on heritage. But it can compete on quality-to-price ratio — if the industry invests in making that ratio more compelling.

The 22 million pairs are impressive. The next goal: make them worth more.

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Source: World Footwear — “Pakistan footwear exports rise despite weakness in the leather segment,” June 2026