China, Korea and Japan may account for 98.5% of the container ship orderbook but in this insight we look at the other 1.5%.
The global container ship order book is currently the largest it has ever been with more than a thousand newbuildings and over 10 Mteu on order. This represents a whopping 31.1% of the global fleet in terms of teu slot capacity.
China (7.36 Mteu/73.7%), Korea (2.04 Mteu/20.5%), and Japan (0.43 Mteu/4.3%) dominate the business, and a mere 29 newbuildings from the global pipeline will come from a handful of yards outside the big three countries.
Taiwan (16 ships), Turkey (4), the US (3), and India (2) each have a number of container ships under construction. Similarly, there are a few very small vessels on order from yards in Azerbaijan, Indonesia and Pakistan.
In many cases, there are specific reasons why these ships were ordered from yards outside the ’big 3’ shipbuilding nations.
Turkey’s two largest vessels, ships of 4,012 teu, are being built at a yard that is a sister company of the ship owner and operator that contracted the pair.
Orders in the US are clearly motivated by the Jones Act requirements that demand US-built tonnage for operations on domestic services, such as the lines to Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico.
Source: Alphaliner
