The booming market for larger superyachts is being fuelled by a ‘new type of wealth’, according to the chair of the industry’s biggest shipbuilder.
Speaking exclusively to Spear’s, Azimut Benetti chair Giovanna Vitelli said the market for yachts above 50m in length appeared to have ‘no end’ in sight and was being powered by an emerging cohort of wealthier, younger customers whose money was coming from ‘new sectors’ and technologies.
Whereas yacht-buyers might once have started small and traded up several times, doing ‘the whole path from a 50 foot to a 50 metre’ over the course of many years, it is no longer unusual for ‘first-time boaters’ to purchase a 50m or even 60m yacht, Vitelli said.
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Vitelli was speaking to Spear’s at the Monaco Yacht Show, where several senior executives reported full order books, meaning prospective buyers of superyachts of 50m or more would have to wait until 2030 or even 2031 to take delivery of a vessel ordered this year.
However, the market is operating at ‘two different speeds,’ with demand for yachts under 30m ‘slowing down’, Vitelli noted. This was partly attributed to a 15 per cent US tariff on EU-built boats. Larger boats purchased by US customers are often registered in other jurisdictions and so are not formally imported, but this is less common with smaller, less expensive vessels.
Across the industry, the number of new superyacht sales is still below the peak reached during the pandemic, but 2025 (when 211 new yachts over 30m were sold) was the best performing year since 2022, according to Superyacht IQ data published by brokerage Fraser Yachts. The strongest growth has been in yachts above 60m. The market for all superyachts is forecast to grow from $11.11 billion in 2026 to $16.63 billion by 2034, according to Fortune Business Insights.
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Azimut Benetti Group – which was created in 1984 when Azimut, the company founded by Vitelli’s late father Paulo in 1969, acquired the business that had been run by the Benetti family since 1873 – topped the rankings of the world’s most prolific superyacht builders for the 26th consecutive year in 2025. The shipbuilder had 163 yachts of 24m or longer under construction; 23 per cent of the global market, according to a report by the superyacht magazine Boat International.
Having begun her career as a corporate lawyer, Vitelli joined the board of Azimut Benetti in 2000 and became chair in 2023. The company’s CEO is Marco Valle.
Azimut Benetti is privately held and majority-owned by the Vitelli family. In 2023, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF took a 33 per cent stake.
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Though the US is the company’s biggest market, it has recently seen strong performance in the Middle East and recorded $300 million turnover in Saudi Arabia last year alone. However, Vitelli noted, ‘the current situation has slowed down the opportunities in the region in general’.
Azimut Benetti has doubled revenues to €1.5 billion over the past five years. Aside from the US and Middle East, the group has had success in Asia. Last month it announced a deal to supply a fleet of 18 yachts that would serve guests of a Waldorf Astoria and Rosewood hotel in the Maldives. Under the same deal an Azimut service centre will be constructed in the Maldives.
Asked about sustainability, Vitelli said that yachting, ‘like many industries, has been even overrated in terms of the promises that have been made’. She added that alternative fuels such as methanol and hydrogen ‘are not ready at all for this industry, because the technology is not there’. Azimut Benetti is focused on diesel-electric and hybrid systems the company says allow its customers to reduce energy consumption by 25 to 30 per cent. Vitelli called this ‘state of the art’, but ‘probably not the final answer’.
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More broadly, Vitelli said, ‘Yachting […] has moved from opulence – I would even say “show-off” – to a more intimate, authentic approach to nature and to life at sea.’ She also emphasised the industry’s embrace of longevity, which Azimut Benetti sought to underline with a new concept design unveiled at the Monaco Yacht Show.
Looking to the future of the business, Vitelli said her focus was to retain the feel of a family company ‘in terms of DNA’, while ensuring the structure was that of a ‘global multi-national company […] with its processes, with its delegation of authority to managers’.
Vitelli revealed that her son, who is ‘only 21’, has recently joined the company’s board of directors ‘with the purpose to learn – and then we will see what happens’.
‘But of course, part of me, just like my father, is wishing continuity for the company,’ added Vitelli, noting she also has an 18-year-old daughter. ‘But we will see.’
