Eco-Friendly Technology And Digitalization Will Reshape Shipbuilding Industry

Key Takeaways

• Leadership in eco-friendly vessel technology drives high-value contracts, regulatory advantage, and sustained growth in revenue and margins.
  
• International expansion and technological advances diversify revenue, reduce cyclicality, and strengthen long-term earnings and market share.
  
• The company faces revenue and margin risks from a shrinking shipbuilding market, foreign exchange exposure, cyclical earnings, pricing pressures, and ongoing labor challenges.

Catalysts

Engages in operating shipbuilding and offshore, naval and special ships, and engine and machinery business units worldwide.

• The company's technological leadership and established position in eco-friendly, alternative-fuel vessels (including LNG, ammonia, hydrogen, and dual-fuel) is enabling it to consistently secure high-value contracts and maintain a robust order backlog, positioning it to benefit from tightening global environmental regulations and the industry-wide fleet renewal, supporting both future revenue and margin expansion.
  
• Secular growth in global energy transition, both in LNG demand and offshore wind, is creating multi-year order visibility-HD Hyundai is actively bidding on, and expected to win, major LNG, offshore oil & gas, and renewable energy infrastructure projects, which will diversify revenues and reduce cyclicality, supporting higher sustained earnings growth and backlog stability.
  
• Continued advances in digitalization, automation, and productivity (evidenced by consistent productivity improvements and efficiency gains) are allowing for higher throughput and improved product mix, structurally increasing gross margins and operating leverage.
  
• Despite short-term global new order softness in some ship segments, the company's strong order intake (reaching 70% of full-year targets by mid-year and stable newbuilding prices) reflects HD Hyundai's pricing power and competitive positioning-this mitigates risk and ensures continued revenue momentum and solid profit visibility amid near-term volatility.
  
• Strategic international expansion and technology partnerships (India, Philippines, Vietnam, and the U.S., including SMR projects and naval vessels) are opening new growth avenues, enabling incremental revenue streams and capturing high-margin business, supporting long-term EPS growth and improved global market share.

HD Hyundai Heavy IndustriesLtd Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

• Analysts are assuming HD Hyundai Heavy IndustriesLtd's revenue will grow by 8.5% annually over the next 3 years.
• Analysts assume that profit margins will increase from 5.7% today to 11.6% in 3 years time.
• Analysts expect earnings to reach ₩2261.7 billion (and earnings per share of ₩25676.08) by about August 2028, up from ₩877.1 billion today. However, there is a considerable amount of disagreement amongst the analysts with the most bullish expecting ₩3415.0 billion in earnings, and the most bearish expecting ₩1338.0 billion.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the analysts price target, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 25.4x on those 2028 earnings, down from 47.2x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the KR Machinery industry at 20.2x.
• Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to remain consistent over the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 8.13%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

HD Hyundai Heavy IndustriesLtd Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

• The global shipbuilding market is experiencing a sharp downturn with Q2 2025 global new orders for commercial vessels down over 50% year-on-year, marking the lowest in five years, driven by geopolitical instability, protectionism, and uncertain U.S. trade policy-factors that could significantly reduce HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' long-term revenue and contract backlog if sustained.
  
• Increasing FX-related losses (totaling ₩46 billion this quarter, with substantive valuation and derivative losses) highlight ongoing exposure to foreign exchange volatility, which, if persistent, will erode operating profit and net margins given the high proportion of export-based contracts.
  
• The company's performance shows heavy reliance on cyclical shipbuilding and offshore segments, demonstrated by seasonally-driven and project-specific earnings growth, which exposes it to sharp earnings downturns during market contraction or delayed project awards.
  
• Declining LNG newbuilding price indices and recent instances of contract price discounting to fill delivery slots, coupled with short-term delivery saturation, suggest downward pressure on average selling prices for future orders and potential compression of margins, affecting long-term revenue growth.
  
• Ongoing challenges with labor requirements, particularly the sensitivity around workforce relocation for naval shipbuilding and the legal difficulties in sourcing talent for specialized projects, could constrain production scalability, drive up operating costs, and limit long-term improvements in productivity and profitability.

Valuation

• The analysts have a consensus price target of ₩516666.667 for HD Hyundai Heavy IndustriesLtd based on their expectations of its future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors. However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of ₩630000.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just ₩280000.0.
• In order for you to agree with the analyst's consensus, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be ₩19569.7 billion, earnings will come to ₩2261.7 billion, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 25.4x, assuming you use a discount rate of 8.1%.
• Given the current share price of ₩466500.0, the analyst price target of ₩516666.67 is 9.7% higher.
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.