235 ships! Japanese shipbuilders' annual order intake falls for the third consecutive year

Despite a rebound in March, Japanese shipbuilders' order intake for the full fiscal year 2024 continued its downward trend.

Recently, the Japan Ship Exporters' Association (JSEA) released the latest data on Japanese shipbuilders' order intake for March 2025. In March 2025, Japanese shipbuilders received orders for a total of 24 vessels with a gross tonnage (GT) of 1,325,560, a 16.2% increase compared to 26 vessels with 1,140,370 GT in the same period of 2024.

By ship type, the 24 new vessel orders received by Japanese shipbuilders in March this year included 5 cargo ships (3 container ships and 2 general cargo ships) totaling 271,680 GT, 16 bulk carriers (7 Handysize, 5 Supramax, 1 Panamax and 3 Capesize totaling 713,400 GT), 2 VLCCs totaling 340,000 GT, and 1 fishery research vessel of 480 GT.

For the full fiscal year 2024 (April 2024 - March 2025), Japanese shipbuilders received a total of 235 vessels with 10,707,906 GT, an 8.5% decrease year-on-year, marking the third consecutive year of negative growth. By ship type, this included 26 cargo ships with 1,318,170 GT, 188 bulk carriers with 8,487,920 GT, 20 tankers with 901,336 GT, and 1 other vessel of 480 GT.

Since February 2024, Japanese shipbuilders' monthly order intake has maintained a year-on-year growth trend until September of the same year, when it declined for four consecutive months. The decline in October and November exceeded 70%, with the order intake in November reaching a new low for the year at only 6 vessels with 236,096 GT. In January this year, Japanese shipbuilders' order intake increased significantly year-on-year, but quickly fell back in February.

Japanese shipbuilding industry insiders pointed out that due to tight shipyard capacity in Japan, negotiations for new ship construction have been in a wait-and-see phase since last autumn. However, in March this year, multiple new ship orders were still obtained, mainly with delivery scheduled for 2029. It is expected that the cumulative order intake for fiscal year 2025 (April 2025 - March 2026) will remain above 10 million GT.

As of the end of March this year, Japanese shipbuilders had a total order backlog of 613 vessels with 29.38 million GT, a slight increase from 29.10 million GT at the end of February. Currently, Japanese shipbuilders' order backlog remains high, equivalent to approximately 3.7 years of construction based on the completion volume in 2024.

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