Korean shipbuilders facing rise of Chinese shipbuilders winning large containership orders

For the first time, Chinese shipbuilders have won large containership orders from global shipping giants. The Chinese government gave full support to the Chinese shipbuilder in landing this order. This helped China rise as the No. 1 shipbuilding powerhouse for large containerships in the world in the first half of this year, BusinessKorea reports.

Also in the first half of this year, Chinese shipbuilders received orders for large containerships not only from Chinese carriers but from Denmark’s Maersk, the world’s second-largest shipping company, and France’s CMA CGM, the third-largest, according to sources in the shipbuilding industry on July 27. In particular, Maersk has long ordered containerships of 5,000 TEU or less from Chinese shipbuilders, but in the first half of this year, it ordered a 9,000 TEU methanol-powered containership for the first time.

The Chinese government’s support powered Chinese shipbuilders’ rise to prominence in the large containership market. In the case of the CMA CGM order, the deal gained strong momentum on French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China in April, during which Macron met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Thanks to a series of orders from global shipping companies, China has taken the top spot in the large containership (over 9,000 TEU) market with a 46 percent share in the first half of this year, surpassing Korea with 38 percent.

Moreover, China’s rise to the top of the large containership market, which had long been dominated by Korea, further threatens the Korean shipbuilding industry. Five years ago, in the first half of 2018, it held a 56 percent share, far surpassing China (11 percent) and Japan (33 percent).

China is also closing in on Korea in the LNG carrier sector. While Korea’s share of the LNG carrier market, which was over 90 percent, dropped to 67.9 percent in 2022, China’s share rose from a single digit to nearly 30 percent. In the first half of this year, Korea retook the lead with an 88 percent share, widening its gap with China once again.