Hyundai Sees Warship Market as Growth Driver

Hyundai Heavy Industries Co will enhance its presence in the warship market to boost sales, relying on its advanced technologies and its experience in the sector.

The company has completed a July 2016 order from the Royal New Zealand Navy for a 26,000-ton warship, which was named Aotearoa, that left Ulsan for New Zealand Tuesday.

Hyundai Heavy is anticipating more orders from New Zealand, as the latter had signed a deal with South Korea in June last year to boost cooperation in the military supplies field.

The shipbuilder is also in the early phase of designing a next-generation amphibious assault ship dubbed Landing Platform eXperimental (LPX)-Ⅱ for the South Korean Navy.

The deal for the LPX-II project, which aims to build a large-deck landing ship for fighter jets with short take-off and vertical landing capabilities, was signed in October last year.

The shipbuilder is also bidding for an order to design the South Korean Navy's 6,000-ton class destroyers, called the Korea Destroyer Next Generation.

The country's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) will close the bidding on July 20.

The company has built about 80 warships, including the destroyer King Sejong the Great of the South Korean Navy.

Last year, Hyundai Heavy's warship sales accounted for only 8 percent of the shipbuilding revenue of 13.3 trillion won of its parent group, Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co.