In 2023, Korea’s shipbuilding industry lost the world’s top spot to China for the third consecutive year. However, even as orders fell by more than 37 percent in 2023, the proportion of high-value vessels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers climbed.
Global shipbuilding orders totaled 41.49 million CGT in 2023, down 18.7 percent from 2022, according to Clarkson Research, a British shipbuilding and shipping analysis organization.
Of this, Korea’s order intake stood at 10.01 million CGT, down 37.6 percent year on year. Its global market share hit 24 percent. China remained the world’s top order booker with 24.46 million CGT, a 59 percent share.
Korea led the world in shipbuilding orders for three consecutive years through 2020 but has lost the top spot to China for the third consecutive year since 2021. This was largely due to an increase in shipbuilding orders from Chinese clients. In addition, the Korean shipbuilding industry has a backlog of about four years worth of shipbuilding work.
As a result, the big three Korean shipbuilders’ business performances declined last year. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE) was the only one to meet its order target in 2023.
However, the quality of orders to Korea improved. Korea’s share reached 80 percent of the world LNG carrier market. LNG carriers are high-value-added vessels. Last year, global orders for LNG carriers totaled 5.54 million CGT of which South Korea took 4.41 million CGT. The Chinese shipbuilding industry claimed most of the rest.
The Korean shipbuilding industry is also pumping up its efforts to land more orders for eco-friendly vessels such as methanol-powered container ships, liquefied carbon dioxide carriers and ammonia carriers.