As recently highlighted during our last collaboration with Ship2Shore (La ripartenza delle crociere non è stata uguale per tutti: due colossi a confronto | Ship2Shore) the cruising sector is once again one of the fastest growing businesses in the maritime scenario. The biggest cruise companies in the world have been placing record breaking orders all around European shipyards, especially since the beginning of 2024.
The next chart compares the capacity (ALBs) of newbuilding cruise ships from 2025 to 2029 with the estimated 2024 passengers of the 5 biggest cruising companies in the world (source: CruiseMarketWatch). Even if differences in terms of estimated passengers have a big impact on market share, big players are investing significantly to boost capacity in the next five years. Smaller cruise companies, such as Disney, are going to increase the total number of ALBs similar to the biggest cruise company in the world, Carnival Corporation; neither MSC and NCL, thanks to their multi-brand strategy, will slow down their growth. Royal Caribbean, which became the most valuable company in the sector, will increase its capacity by more than 5 thousand LBs per year in the next five years, beating all of its competitors.
On the other hand, the 2nd chart compares the estimated total cost for the same ships with the estimated revenues of 2024 (source: CruiseMarketWatch). Different inputs, but very similar outputs. Disney is once again the fastest growing company, with a total budget for 2025-2029 that will account for more than 2,5 times the estimated revenues for fiscal year 2024. On the other hand, Carnival Corporation will spend less than all its competitors, whose estimated budget is more than 6 billion dollars each. This is also related to Carnival’s strategy, which has been pursuing the specific scope of significantly reducing the amount of gross debt related to pandemic-impacted fiscal years since the beginning of 2023.
