Hong Kong Stock Concept Tracking | Staying at the top of the global market share, China's shipbuilding industry hits record highs in the three major indicators (with concept stocks)

On July 23, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released China's shipbuilding industry statistics for the first half of 2026.

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the data shows that China's three core indicators of shipbuilding completion volume, new orders received, and handheld orders reached new record highs, and continued to lead the global market.

In the first half of this year, the completed shipbuilding volume representing China's shipbuilding capacity was 36.5 million dwt, an increase of 51.2% over the previous year; the number of handheld orders representing the long-term stability of the shipbuilding industry was 363.25 million dwt, an increase of 54.9% over the previous year. The number of new orders received, representing market competitiveness, reached 121.06 million DWT, an increase of 173.1% over the previous year, surpassing the historical peak of orders for the whole year.

In the new order data, the reporter found that China's new orders for the three mainstream ship types — bulk carriers, container ships, and tankers — all account for more than 80% of the international market share.

Shen Wan Hongyuan released a research report saying that the price of oil bulk carriers resonated with the rise, and tanker prices continued to rise during the year, driving the rest of the ship prices to rise. In the context of different ship types sharing shipyard production capacity, ship prices for various ship types have resonated upward, and the trend is expected to continue.

China Galaxy Securities released a research report saying that South Korea has established a Korea-US shipbuilding cooperative investment negotiation agency, which is expected to accelerate investment by South Korean shipping companies in the US. Meanwhile, attention in the floating data center (FDC) market is heating up. South Korea's top three shipping companies have received customer order information one after another, and FDC profits are expected to be higher than the currently most profitable LNG carriers. Furthermore, the total scale of Canada's CPSP submarine project is 60 trillion won, and if South Korea wins the bid, it will increase the profits of shipping companies. The global shipbuilding cycle is booming, so it is recommended to focus on the accelerated release of Chinese shipbuilding companies' performance.

The shipbuilding industry involves relevant Hong Kong stocks:

China Shipbuilding Defense (00317): The shipping industry continues to operate at a high level, the company's handheld order structure continues to be optimized, and on-hand production tasks are sufficient. According to the announcement of a pre-increase in performance, the company expects to achieve net profit of RMB 790 million to RMB 890 million in the half-year of 2026, an increase of RMB 263.61 billion to RMB 363.1 billion compared with the same period last year, an increase of 50.08% — 69.08%; net profit after deducting non-recurring profit and loss is expected to be RMB 740 million to RMB 840 million, an increase of 50.71% — 71.08% year-on-year. The pre-increase in performance is mainly due to the shipbuilding industry maintaining a booming operation. The company's handheld order structure continues to be optimized, on-hand production tasks are sufficient, lean production management results are remarkable, and product gross profit has increased year-on-year; the operating performance of joint ventures has improved and the level of dividends of participating companies has increased dramatically.

Daikin Heavy Industries (01081): Daikin Heavy Industries recently signed a bulk carrier construction contract with Greek shipowners totaling about 2.1 billion yuan, and the total number of shipbuilding orders received during the year has exceeded 10 billion yuan. The continued implementation of high-frequency orders indicates that the company's shipbuilding business is leaping from auxiliary to second-rate growth, accelerating the construction of a new “offshore engineering+shipbuilding” two-wheel drive pattern. Citi published a report covering Daikin Heavy Industries for the first time, giving it a “buy” rating, based on a discounted cash flow valuation, with a target price of HK$50, and listed it as the preferred stock in China's wind power equipment sector. Reasons why the bank is optimistic about this stock include: strong growth in European offshore wind power installations; Daikin Heavy Industries aims to increase its market share of European offshore wind single pile orders from 30% to 40% in 2026; predicts a tripling of net profit from 2025 to 2028; and the shipbuilding business brings further upward room. The current valuation of Daikin Heavy Industries is 9 times the predicted price-earnings ratio and 1.4 times the market-account ratio in 2027. Compared with its 2026-2028 compound annual growth rate of 39% in earnings per share, the valuation is not very high, and it is far lower than the 17.7 times price-earnings ratio and 3.7 times market-account ratio of its European peers. Major catalysts include further new orders in the second half of 2026.