Azimut Benetti's EUR 2.5bn order book pushes new builds toward 2029

The numbers behind the wait

Azimut Benetti confirmed revenue of EUR 1.5bn for its 2024/25 year, up 15 per cent, alongside an order backlog of EUR 2.5bn secured since January 2025 and stretching into 2029. Marine Industry News reported the figures last September, and nothing published since has softened them.

BOAT International's Global Order Book 2026 then confirmed the group as the world's largest builder for the 26th consecutive year, with 163 yachts and 5,924 metres under construction, 23 per cent of the global market. A builder of that scale carrying a four-year backlog tells you the top of the market has already been bought.

Where the demand sits

This is not a backlog concentrated in one market you can wait out. Azimut Benetti puts 38 per cent of it in Europe and 31 per cent each in the Americas and the MEA-APAC region, the latter up from 23 per cent a year earlier.

The Middle East is driving that shift, with the group reporting more than EUR 300m of sales in Saudi Arabia over 24 months. Buyers there tend to commit quickly and specify large, which shortens the queue for no one else.

Buying against a full book

If you want a new build from the group this decade, the realistic conversation starts with delivery in its back half, and the contract now matters more than the brochure. Lock the delivery date with real remedies and cap escalation, because a signed slot has become an asset in its own right.

Azimut Benetti is investing EUR 115m across its Italian sites through 2027, but new capacity arrives in years, not seasons. Until it does, the alternatives are taking over a late-stage contract or paying the brokerage market's premium for immediacy. The builder is no longer waiting for buyers. Buyers are waiting for the builder.