Global shipbuilding industry orders to fall significantly in 2025
Global shipbuilding industry orders will fall significantly in 2025. Clarkson data shows that global new ship orders fell 54% year-on-year in the first half of the year, and the cumulative year-on-year decrease from January to October was 43%. The Export-Import Bank of Korea even predicts that global new ship orders in 2025 will decrease by 45.9% compared with 2024. This phenomenon is the result of multiple factors such as shipping market fluctuations, changes in policies and regulations, and industry supply and demand adjustments.
1. The downturn in the shipping market has led to a decrease in shipowners’ willingness to invest.
The continued decline in freight rates in the shipping market has severely compressed the profit margins of shipping companies, directly weakening the financial strength and motivation of shipowners to order new ships. For example, the dry bulk shipping freight index has dropped to 19,951 points in October 2025, a significant decline from 26,779 points in 2023; the Shanghai container freight index has dropped from 5,109 points during the epidemic to 1,403 points in October 2025. The drop in freight rates has made shipowners cautious about the prospects of the shipping market, and has subsequently postponed or canceled new ship ordering plans.
In 2024, global new ship orders will hit a peak since 2008, forming a very high base. The order volume in 2025 will naturally fall after the concentrated release of demand in the early stage. This phased adjustment appears to have a particularly significant decline due to the difference in base numbers. For example, Clarkson even initially predicted that orders in 2025 may drop by 50%. Even if it subsequently raised its forecast, it still believed that full-year orders would fall by about 30% compared with 2024.
2. Policy and geopolitical factors interfere with market expectations
The United States launched a Section 301 investigation into China's shipbuilding industry and also planned to impose additional port fees on Chinese-made ships. Although some policies have been suspended for a year, such measures have disrupted shipowners' ship ordering plans. In order to avoid risks, international shipowners choose to suspend or postpone new shipbuilding projects, which directly causes Chinese shipyards' share of global orders to drop from 70% in 2024 to 52% in 2025, thereby lowering the overall global order volume.
The International Maritime Organization's (IMO) carbon emission reduction regulations would have been an important impetus for shipowners to order green ships, but due to strong opposition from the US President, the regulations may be delayed until the end of his term. Uncertainty about the timing of the implementation of regulations has forced shipowners to shelve their ship ordering plans to adapt to environmental protection requirements, resulting in a reduction in demand for new ships.
3. Constraints from structural issues on the supply and demand side of the industry
Global shipbuilding capacity expansion is extremely restrained, with a compound annual growth rate of only 2% from 2025 to 2027. Among them, Chinese shipyards have orders on hand in 2025 covering 3.6 to 3.7 years, and their production capacity is becoming saturated, making it difficult to accept more new orders in the short term; while Korean and Japanese shipyards have a conservative attitude towards production capacity expansion and are unwilling to increase production capacity on a large scale. Insufficient supply of global production capacity has caused some potential orders to be lost or delayed due to inability to schedule production in time.
The global credit market environment is volatile, and the financing cost of new ships is rising under the trend of credit tightening. Large shipping companies can still cope with it through their own capital reserves, but small and medium-sized shipowners are highly dependent on financing, and the increase in financing costs has further aggravated their operating pressure. As a result, these groups are unable to order new ships and can only abandon or postpone order plans, which has also lowered the total number of global new ship orders to a certain extent.
The decline in global new ship orders in 2025 will not affect all ship types, but will show obvious structural differentiation. Container ships are the only ship type that has achieved growth, while orders for bulk carriers and gas carriers, which account for a large proportion, have fallen sharply. Among them, bulk carrier orders fell by 67.6% from January to September, and gas carrier contract signings fell by 77.4% year-on-year. These two types of ship types are important components of shipbuilding orders, and the sharp decline in their orders has directly led to the overall decline in orders in the global shipbuilding industry.
1. The downturn in the shipping market has led to a decrease in shipowners’ willingness to invest.
The continued decline in freight rates in the shipping market has severely compressed the profit margins of shipping companies, directly weakening the financial strength and motivation of shipowners to order new ships. For example, the dry bulk shipping freight index has dropped to 19,951 points in October 2025, a significant decline from 26,779 points in 2023; the Shanghai container freight index has dropped from 5,109 points during the epidemic to 1,403 points in October 2025. The drop in freight rates has made shipowners cautious about the prospects of the shipping market, and has subsequently postponed or canceled new ship ordering plans.
In 2024, global new ship orders will hit a peak since 2008, forming a very high base. The order volume in 2025 will naturally fall after the concentrated release of demand in the early stage. This phased adjustment appears to have a particularly significant decline due to the difference in base numbers. For example, Clarkson even initially predicted that orders in 2025 may drop by 50%. Even if it subsequently raised its forecast, it still believed that full-year orders would fall by about 30% compared with 2024.
2. Policy and geopolitical factors interfere with market expectations
The United States launched a Section 301 investigation into China's shipbuilding industry and also planned to impose additional port fees on Chinese-made ships. Although some policies have been suspended for a year, such measures have disrupted shipowners' ship ordering plans. In order to avoid risks, international shipowners choose to suspend or postpone new shipbuilding projects, which directly causes Chinese shipyards' share of global orders to drop from 70% in 2024 to 52% in 2025, thereby lowering the overall global order volume.
The International Maritime Organization's (IMO) carbon emission reduction regulations would have been an important impetus for shipowners to order green ships, but due to strong opposition from the US President, the regulations may be delayed until the end of his term. Uncertainty about the timing of the implementation of regulations has forced shipowners to shelve their ship ordering plans to adapt to environmental protection requirements, resulting in a reduction in demand for new ships.
3. Constraints from structural issues on the supply and demand side of the industry
Global shipbuilding capacity expansion is extremely restrained, with a compound annual growth rate of only 2% from 2025 to 2027. Among them, Chinese shipyards have orders on hand in 2025 covering 3.6 to 3.7 years, and their production capacity is becoming saturated, making it difficult to accept more new orders in the short term; while Korean and Japanese shipyards have a conservative attitude towards production capacity expansion and are unwilling to increase production capacity on a large scale. Insufficient supply of global production capacity has caused some potential orders to be lost or delayed due to inability to schedule production in time.
The global credit market environment is volatile, and the financing cost of new ships is rising under the trend of credit tightening. Large shipping companies can still cope with it through their own capital reserves, but small and medium-sized shipowners are highly dependent on financing, and the increase in financing costs has further aggravated their operating pressure. As a result, these groups are unable to order new ships and can only abandon or postpone order plans, which has also lowered the total number of global new ship orders to a certain extent.
The decline in global new ship orders in 2025 will not affect all ship types, but will show obvious structural differentiation. Container ships are the only ship type that has achieved growth, while orders for bulk carriers and gas carriers, which account for a large proportion, have fallen sharply. Among them, bulk carrier orders fell by 67.6% from January to September, and gas carrier contract signings fell by 77.4% year-on-year. These two types of ship types are important components of shipbuilding orders, and the sharp decline in their orders has directly led to the overall decline in orders in the global shipbuilding industry.
Release time: 2025-11-25
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