Capacity, not demand, stalls shipbuilders' growth plans, report says

Green regulation added further pressure.

Global shipbuilding is being squeezed by a convergence of naval rearmament, a cruise industry rebound, and tightening green regulation.

A Roland Berger report said global commercial shipbuilding contracting reached 132 million gross tonnes in 2024, worth $217bm, with container ships leading both volume (34%) and value (26%) of contracting.

It was followed by tankers (24% by volume, 18% by value) and bulk carriers (21% by volume, 11% by value).

Asia dominates high-volume segments, whilst Europe concentrates on higher-value cruise ships and naval vessels.

Naval investment is tying up capacity industry-wide. Specialised players have committed production resources to naval programmes for years, leaving limited residual capacity for civilian projects and pushing up lead times and prices across the market.

The cruise sector has also rebounded sharply. Global cruise passenger volumes fell to 4.8 million in 2021 during the pandemic before climbing back to 34.6 million in 2024, with Roland Berger projecting 41.9 million by 2028 — above the 2019 pre-crisis peak of 29.7 million.

Specialised cruise shipyards including Meyer Werft, Meyer Turku, Chantiers de l'Atlantique, and Fincantieri are now booked into the 2030s, with individual vessel construction periods running two to three years or longer.

Green regulation adds further pressure. Roland Berger's fuel-mix forecast projects liquefied natural gas, ammonia, and methanol will together account for 70% of alternative-fuel fleet composition by 2050, up from a fossil-fuel-dominated base in 2008.

Shipping line Hapag-Lloyd has targeted a significant carbon dioxide cut by 2030 and net zero by 2045, whilst Fincantieri is targeting its first net-zero-emission cruise ship around 2035.

To manage capacity constraints, the report recommends five practices—stronger cross-functional governance of vessel programs, redesigned production footprints with make-or-buy strategies, deeper strategic supplier partnerships, integrated project-based operating models, and digital, artificial intelligence-supported end-to-end planning platforms.

It cites Damen Shipyards Group's outsourcing of hull construction to Romania, Vietnam, and Turkey, and Fincantieri's plan to shift cruise-ship production outside Italy whilst doubling defence output, as examples already in practice.