Superyacht Rendez-Vous

 

 

 

Expanding demand from Chinese customers has opened up promising avenues for the Chinese yachting market. With world-class yachting infrastructure, China’s yachting hub, Hainan is now the largest market for yachts and superyachts in China.

 

The culture of yachting, a major pastime among affluent Americans and Europeans, is now taking hold in China, as the mainland’s new wealthy increasingly spend their money on high-end status symbols. Even though the government’s anti-corruption drive has dampened the market for luxury goods in China, the outlook for the yacht industry is still bright. It is projected that the number of leisure boats and yachts in the country will reach 100,000 by 2020, up from a mere 3,000 in 2012. And the market in 2020 is estimated to be worth approximately US$8.16 billion. CLOSER speaks with three big names in the industry in Asia to find out more about this world of high speed opulence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike Simpson: China, being so big, was always going to be very attractive because of its obvious potential. When we first started looking at it about 20 years ago, it had no understanding of yachting. There was also a lot of suspicion around wealth, so showing off your wealth was not considered a good idea. In around 2005, we opened an office in Shanghai on behalf of the shipyard we were representing. Subsequently we opened up in Shenzhen, and there are two offices in Hainan now, and we have a couple of offices in Taiwan and always in Hong Kong. We are covering greater China with the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong with a number of offices. That’s where we see the biggest potential for the future. But on the other hand, Southeast Asia has also been a buoyant market for us over the last few years. Malaysia is also a market of great interest.

 

 

It is coming. We supported the China Cup when it first launched eight years ago with Beneteau. We sponsored them because I saw that as a grassroots development, something you need to have in any country; you need to get people straight out of school or college and into boating, get them on the water. If you develop yachting, sailing as a sport, it does form a broad base for the development of the yacht market. There’s an awareness, an interest, in the sea. I saw that as being useful and it proved to be the case. 

 

 

Relatively speaking, there hasn’t been that many yachts sold into China, so it’s not so easy to see trends. We’ve made some generalizations about what Chinese people like. The interesting thing is that taste in China does develop very quickly, everything happens fast.  In terms of design, when you look at new models, it’s not so easy to keep ahead and to anticipate where the China market is going to be in a few years time. 

 

 

Because of this new arrangement where there is free transit between Macau and Zhongshan, this means that there is a big opportunity as the whole area starts to open up to yachting. Unfortunately, Hong Kong seems to have been slow to react to this, so the initial connection is between Macau and Zhongshan, but we hope in the future that will extend to Hong Kong. Then you’ll have the possibility for yachts to move around this area and this has great potential for us. At this stage it doesn’t make a big difference because there is no marina in Macau, but when it does open I think we will see a lot of interest amongst Chinese people in keeping their yachts here, and that would be something we would be very interested in. 

 

 

 

managing director, BENETEAU Asia 

 

Shipwright Benjamin Beneteau founded his company in 1884, at Croix-de-Vie, France to build sailing trawlers. In the mid sixties, his grandchildren introduced a line of fibreglass boats. 

 

 

 

Thibaut De Montvalon: We are a French company and the largest boat builder in the world, owned by the Beneteau family, launched in 1884. We build all sizes of boats, from five meters all the way to 32 meters – sailing yachts, motor yachts, monohull, catamarans – and we turn over a billion euros annually with shipyards in France, Italy, Poland, Brazil, the US. It’s a family-owned business, we are not run by a financial fund, we care about the workforce. We have people who have been working in Beneteau for two or three generations. 

 

 

We build around 5,000 boats annually and sell 50 boats annually in China, and between 150 and 200 in Asia. The boating market in China is between five and seven years old. 

 

 

Regarding the market in China, most of the buyers we used to have were people involved in real estate. Today’s profile of buyers is much closer to those we have in the west, people who buy a yacht to enjoy it – mostly male businessmen between 40 and 50 years of age, who own their own businesses. They are well-travelled, they frequently go to the US or the south of France, and they want to get into the lifestyle. 

 

 

Part of our identity and DNA is innovation. We were the first ones to launch a cruising range of catamarans, Lagoon, and when this was launched in 1984 everyone told us that there was no market for it, and today it is the fastest growing segment.  Beneteau is very famous for our sailing yachts; they have always been at the cutting edge in terms of design. We find ways to offer better value to our customers and this tends to become the norm in the industry.    

 

 

 

 

Founded in 1873, Benetti is an Italian shipbuilding and Boat building company owned by Azimut. Benetti designs and constructs motoryachts, and is one of the leading builders of custom superyachts, having won the Showboats International magazine ‘Shipyard Number 1’ award six times in a row, the only yard to have done so. One hundred and forty-two years of history, more than 300 boats built, over 300,000 square metres of production facilities at six shipyards, Benetti is one of the oldest builders of luxury motoryachts in the world.

 

 

 

Monte Carlo Yachts manufacture luxury flybridge motor yachts over 60 feet, bringing together the excellence of Italian design, innovation and technology. Monte Carlo Yachts is a Beneteau Group company, the world leader in sailboats and the leader in Europe for motoryachts from five to 15 metres. Created at the end of 2008, the company is genuinely Italian and is based in Monfalcone, in the gulf of Trieste, within a vast area facing the sea that is being transformed into a nautical centre, with a marina for 2,700 berths and shipyards.

 

 

 

Regional sales director

Ferretti Group Asia Pacific 

 

An Italian multinational shipbuilding company headquartered in Forlì, Ferretti specialises in the design, construction and sale of luxury motor yachts. 

 

 

Allessandro Terelli: It is a common question, but I always try to explain that this is not gifting, none of our clients are buying a boat for gifting. The anti-corruption situation is affecting the general mood of the clients. But what’s most affecting our clients is economics. Because certain parts of the economy, let’s imagine clients from an industry like steel or coal, have been on the rise but are now dropping, so these clients are much more affected and will not be buying yachts if they don’t see a bright future.

 

It’s promising because if you add the same percentage of penetration of yachts to the level wealth and the number of wealthy, you reach unbelievable numbers. We have been in this market for a long time, so we know very well that there is potention but also a lot of constraints. The constraints are cultural, macro-economic, and other factors such as anti-corruption. All these factors together are limiting expansion. The biggest one, for sure, is the lack of knowledge. In the world of yachting there is still a lot that remains unknown.

 

They are. Now we have people from finance and stocks, as it has changed. The market is still quite limited, but we have increased our market share and this is happening for many reasons. Our product, our service, and we do things directly, not through dealers, we don’t leave sensitive operations in the hands of the local dealer. We are investing a lot in branding, Chinese people like brands a lot, they need “face” and brands give them that. 

 

 

Ferretti concentrates on very large yachts. Because of our production techniques, we have a lot of craftsmanship, we are not very industrialized. We still have a lot of flexibility and customization and this creates a lot of inflexibility in the production line and affects the number of boats we can build. Our average boat, that we sell all around the world, is between a 70 to 80-footer. The smallest boat we sell now is a 55-footer, (70 m) and this sells for 1.8 million Euros. So that’s a lot. When it comes to buying a Ferretti boat, it’s a huge investment. 

 

 

We have a dealer in Macau, Starship Yacht, and they have been Ferretti dealers for many years. They are involved with the management of the new marina and this year we signed another agreement with them. The problem with Macau is berthing, so as soon as the marina gets the final operational license I think we will see development and that is going to be very interesting. 

 

 

Thailand, Phuket, is good for cruising. In the future I see Indonesia as being interesting due to the number of islands – it’s going to be very interesting to move from one to the other – and further into the future, The Philippines, but it’s still a very underdeveloped market, compared to China.  Other interesting developments will be Nansha, Macau, Zhuhai, Anqing, the islands of Anqing and the connection with Hong Kong. That might be interesting over the next ten years.