Scale

314 in-depth interviews with shipowners and C-level executives

Reach

Companies headquartered in ten maritime centres

Duration

Fieldwork May to June 2026, report published July 2026

Team

More than 20 research associates

Effort

Client

A Kapa Research initiative. Independent research, designed, funded and published by us.

Our role

Sole researcher and publisher

Period

May to June 2026, published July 2026

Geography

Greece 37% of the sample, United States 12%, Norway 11%, Germany 9%, Denmark 7%, Singapore 7%, China 5%, Hong Kong 5%, Japan 4%, France 3%

Population

Chief executives and managing directors 23%, technical directors and DPAs 19%, operations directors 17%, commercial directors 9%, owners and co-owners 6%, chief financial officers 5%, chief technology officers 3%, heads of sustainability 3%. 43% of the companies operate fleets above one million DWT.

Mode and platform

In-depth interviews on a structured questionnaire, by telephone, video and face to face, recorded in Survey Solutions

Languages

English and Greek

Quality standard

Targeted sampling from commercial business listings, fleet registries and industry associations. A non-probability sample, so no statistical margin of error applies and results are reported unweighted.

What the data fed

The published Global Shipping Outlook 2026 report

76% expect China and India to have the strongest influence on global shipping, against 17% for the United States, the EU, Japan and Canada. 76% rank the geopolitical crises in Ukraine, the Red Sea and the Middle East as the industry's most serious problem, first in every region surveyed. 94% are optimistic about their own company. On the inclusion of shipping in the EU ETS, 55% expect it mainly to erode European competitiveness while 33% expect it mainly to advance decarbonization. 65% use or pilot AI, rising to 79% among fleets above one million DWT.