Superyacht Intelligence mid-year order book review (January-June 2014)

With 2014 now more than half way through, it is an opportune time to take a brief look back on order book activity and fleet movement between January and June. There has been good movement in the order book this year, with plenty of new orders to replace the launches, although the latter still outweigh the former. 

LAUNCHES

Between January and June 2014, 71 launches of 30m+ were made. The average length of these launches was 49.7m. Twelve per cent of launches were sailing yachts, 88 per cent were motoryachts, almost exactly in line with the current division of the order book.

The largest yacht launched in this six-month window was 140m Ocean Victory, from Fincantieri. A total of three 70m+ yachts were launched, all built by European yards (worth noting is that two of this size have already been launched in July – but more on that in our review of the second half of the year). The 30-40m size bracket has proved most popular for launches, at 42 per cent (see below chart), but only just, with the 40-50m size bracket clocking 40 per cent.

Breakdown of LOA of Jan-June 2014 launches

NEW ORDERS

Forty-seven orders were announced between January and June, six of which were for sailing yachts. A glaring trend is that of the new order announcements almost 25 per cent of these ‘orders’ have been the sale of existing hulls. This is good news as it shows that significant numbers of spec builds are being cleared from the order book, but it also shows that numbers of actual new orders are not as high as may be perceived.

As for the size of the orders, interestingly the 30-40m, 40-50 and 50-70m size brackets proved to be almost as popular as each other (see the below chart). With a significant share of the orders belonging to the larger size categories this would continue to support theories that the average LOA of yachts is rising. Where once 30-40m was far and away the most populous category, yachts of 40-70m are increasingly popular. 

Breakdown of LOA of Jan-June 2014 orders

At the time of writing the order book stands at 355 yachts, with an average LOA of 47.9m. Forty-one per cent of yachts in build are 30-40m, 30 per cent are 40-50m, 18 per cent are 50-70m and 11 per cent are 70m+. By country of build 76 per cent are in build in Europe, eight per cent in the Americas and 16 per cent in the rest of the world (see below graph).

Breakdown of the order book by country of build

With the first half of the year concluded we now look forward to seeing what the productive show seasons will bring to the order book and, as always, we analyse the state of the industry in our Annual Report, the definitive guide to the superyacht industry. 

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