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CHINA TOOK 81.8%.
WHO GETS THE REST?
New ship orders are concentrating in Chinese yards. Korea, Japan, Europe and the U.S. face a capacity gap that cannot be closed with purchase orders alone.
At 175.29 million deadweight tonnes, Chinese yards booked more than four times the combined new tonnage booked everywhere else during the first nine months of 2026. South Korea has the nearest major rival fleet of yards. Japan is preparing a long rebuild. Europe's specialties earn high values but little bulk tonnage. America is rebuilding from a much smaller commercial base.
The 81.8% headline has two different denominators
Same period, different measuresChina is not winning only the cheapest ships
Reported Jan–Sep order segmentsReported Chinese share; 144 very large crude carriers ordered at Chinese yards.
Share of new ships of at least 10,000 TEU; 94 vessels at Chinese yards.
Reported ship-order share; 71 new car-carrier orders.
Reported share of global new green-powered ship orders; metric follows Chinese industry reporting.
What the competition actually has
Four industrial starting positionsThe backlog advantage is already locked into the calendar
BIMCO / September 1, 2026 / CGTBIMCO's September 1 CGT snapshot. Clarksons' later September 30 snapshot puts China at about 68% and Korea at about 17%. Different cut-off dates and assessments should not be blended into one series.
BACKLOG COVERAGE AT RECENT PEAK OUTPUT
Chinese yards' average order coverage, versus 1.9 years in South Korea and 1.7 years in Japan. BIMCO estimates coverage using each yard's highest annual CGT production over 2021–2025. This is work already contracted, not a prediction that Chinese yards will stop taking orders.
2028: China has a production problem of its own
Scheduled delivery requirementsOrders, deposits and delivery windows create backlog. They do not create qualified workers or completed hulls.
Dry docks, blocks, engines, outfitting, design capacity, financing and classification must all rise together.
New capacity can be stranded if contracting weakens after the delivery wave. China's expansion has that risk too.
Government support changes the cost comparison
Competitive structureRelative subsidy intensity
OECD estimates Chinese yards received roughly ten times the subsidies relative to revenue received by OECD shipbuilders in 2024. This is an industry-average comparison, not a precise discount on an individual ship's contract price.
Japan's rebuilding horizon
Japan's published revival roadmap targets roughly twice 2024 building volume by 2035 through investment, modernization, automation and labor-force measures. Matching China's 2026 contracting wave is a fundamentally different target.
THE SHIPBUILDING GAP / INTERACTIVE MODEL
How many CGT of orders would non-Chinese yards have to win to push China's share down to 60%, 50% or 40%? Allocate the hypothetical shift across Korea, Japan, Europe, America and other yards. Then test the productive capacity needed to sustain that order flow.
Scenario allocation ledger
Does not pretend orders equal deliveries| Yard region | Scaled 2026 reference (M CGT) | Shift gained (M CGT) | Post-shift new orders (M CGT) | Resulting share | Evidence boundary |
|---|
The 2026 reference only separates China, South Korea and an aggregated rest-of-world. The Japan, Europe and U.S. inputs are hypothetical additions to that rest-of-world group; their unreported individual starting order flows are not invented.
How sensitive is the target?
Click a cell to test the marketEach cell shows million CGT that must switch from Chinese to other yards, assuming the 2026 starting share persists and the nine-month market size changes.
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