Sanlorenzo's Order Intake Rises 18.3pc as Europe Slips 16.6pc

What were Sanlorenzo's key H1 2026 financial results?

Sanlorenzo's group order intake for the six months to 30 June 2026 rose 18.3 percent year on year to EUR 496.4 million, its eighth straight quarter of growth, while net revenue from new yachts grew a slower 3.8 percent to EUR 471.3 million.

The company reported the figures in its half-year results, released in early September 2026 and covered the same week by Marine Industry News and Investing.com's earnings-call transcript. Order intake reached EUR 496.4 million, up from EUR 419.5 million a year earlier, with the second quarter alone contributing EUR 273.2 million, up 13.1 percent on Q2 2025. That is the eighth consecutive quarter in which order intake has grown year on year, a run CEO Massimo Perotti pointed to directly, telling investors: "Our strategy is a winner in this difficult moment in the market."

Profitability held rather than surged: EBITDA rose 3.7 percent to EUR 83.5 million, an EBITDA margin of 17.7 percent, and group net profit grew 5.4 percent to EUR 49.1 million. Free cash flow of EUR 80.2 million let the group pay EUR 37.0 million in dividends and still close the half with EUR 49.4 million in net cash. None of those are explosive numbers, and Sanlorenzo did not present them as such; the story in this release is the order book, not the margin. EBIT margin held at 13.2 percent, only slightly below the EBITDA margin, consistent with a business whose depreciation load is modest relative to revenue. The growth is not brand new either: Sanlorenzo's own Q1 2026 results, reported in May, already showed order intake up 25 percent year on year, so the first half confirms a run that was already visible three months earlier.

Why did Sanlorenzo's European revenue fall while other regions grew?

Sanlorenzo's European net revenue fell 16.6 percent to EUR 222.6 million even as the Americas rose 35.4 percent to EUR 129.0 million and Asia-Pacific rose 35.8 percent to EUR 73.9 million, so the group's growth is now coming almost entirely from outside its home continent.

Europe still accounts for the largest single share of revenue, 47.2 percent, so the fall is a shift in mix rather than a collapse: Sanlorenzo remains, first and foremost, an Italian yard selling mostly to European and Mediterranean-based owners. But the direction of travel is unmistakable. The Americas and Asia-Pacific each grew by more than a third, and the Middle East and Africa region grew 22.7 percent to EUR 45.8 million. Three of Sanlorenzo's four reporting regions grew by double digits or more; only the home region contracted.

For an owner, that split has a practical consequence: where the order book is growing is where build slots, dealer attention and after-sales support are being reinforced first. A European buyer competing for a delivery slot two or three years out is now competing against demand that is proportionally heavier from the Americas and Asia-Pacific than it was twelve months ago, even though the yard itself, and final assembly, has not moved. The divergence is visible on the ground as well as in the accounts: Sanlorenzo's own northern German dealer, Lengers, was declared bankrupt in July 2026, one visible sign of distribution strain in the exact market that just posted a double-digit revenue decline, even as the group as a whole kept growing.

How is Sanlorenzo's Superyacht division (boats over 24 metres) performing?

Sanlorenzo's Superyacht division, covering yachts over 24 metres, grew net revenue 12.4 percent to EUR 154.1 million in H1 2026 and now accounts for 32.7 percent of group revenue, the fastest growth rate of the three operating divisions.

The core Yacht division, roughly 24 to 38 metres and still the largest by revenue at EUR 232.8 million, grew a much slower 3.1 percent and holds 49.4 percent of the group total. Bluegame, the smaller sports-boat brand under the same group, was flat at EUR 43.6 million. Put the three together and the pattern is plain: growth inside Sanlorenzo is concentrated at the top of its range, in the size bracket where a single hull carries the most margin and the longest build time.

That matters to anyone shopping in the 30-metre-plus bracket specifically, rather than the Sanlorenzo range as a whole. A division growing at four times the rate of the group's mid-size line is a division the yard is investing management time and capacity into, which tends to show up later as shorter waiting lists relative to demand, more design options at order, or both. It also means a prospective buyer of a smaller Sanlorenzo yacht is, in effect, competing for yard attention against a division that is currently the company's clearest growth story. Bluegame's EUR 43.6 million works out to roughly 9 percent of total group revenue, by far the smallest of the three divisions, which is part of why the Superyacht division's faster growth moves the group average more than its size alone would suggest.

Is Sanlorenzo's order backlog speculative or sold to real buyers?

Sanlorenzo's net order backlog stood at EUR 1,027.6 million at the end of June 2026, up 4.3 percent year on year, with 89 percent of the gross EUR 1.5 billion backlog already sold to named final clients rather than built on spec.

That 89 percent figure is the one worth reading past the headline. A backlog built mostly on spec, hulls started before a buyer is found, is a warning sign in a softening market: it means a yard is building inventory it may have to discount to move. A backlog that is 89 percent pre-sold means the opposite: Sanlorenzo is, overwhelmingly, building boats that already have an owner attached, which is why the company confirmed its full 2026 guidance and the targets of its 2026-2028 business plan alongside these results rather than trimming them.

The book-to-bill ratio, new orders taken against revenue delivered in the period, stayed above 1x for the half, meaning the order book kept growing even as boats were delivered out of it. For an owner ordering today, that combination, a growing backlog that is mostly pre-sold, plus a book-to-bill ratio above 1, points toward waiting times holding or lengthening rather than shortening, at least in the segments driving the growth. It also means resale timing matters: a used Sanlorenzo coming onto the market now is competing against a yard whose new-build pipeline is both fuller and more heavily concentrated in bigger boats than it was a year ago. The net backlog attributable to 2026 alone already covers 83 percent of the midpoint of Sanlorenzo's full-year 2026 revenue guidance, according to the same investor materials, which is a large part of why the company confirmed that guidance in full at the same time rather than trim it.