Why the market for superyachts is booming

Even oligarchs, tech barons and other super-rich folk might have been expected to reconsider spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a superyacht amid gathering global turmoil. In 2020, as covid-19 spread, “I spent my days doing worst-case scenarios and drawing up the budgets to go with them,” says Giovanna Vitelli, chairwoman of Azimut Benetti, the world’s biggest maker of such craft. Then Western sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine lost her a tenth of her customers.Rather than sinking, the makers of superyachts are riding a wave. Recent events, says Ms Vitelli, are “unexpected”. Her firm’s turnover has surged by around 20% since the start of 2022, as has that of the entire sector. A recent survey by Fortune Business Insights, a market-research firm, found that “Most, if not all, yacht-brokerage firms are reporting record sales at the world’s leading shipyards.” Future Market Insights, another market-researcher, expects the industry’s annual revenues to more than double over the next ten years, to $19.9bn.