South Korea's Hyundai Merchant Marine announced Wednesday that it has placed a newbuilding order for five 13,100-teu ultra large containerships at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.
The newbuildings worth around KRW 695bn ($643m) in total are the largest a South Korean liner has ordered to date.
HMM said by enlarging ship types it will be able to cut costs and strengthen competitiveness.
Meanwhile, it is for the first time that the shipowner has booked newbuildings at a shipyard other than Hyundai Heavy Industries.
Many local industry sources link HMM's decision "not to order" newbuilds at Hyundai to a wrangle between HMM and HHI over Hyundai Group's management right.
But an official from HMM played down the rumor, saying "We selected Daewoo just because the yard offered preferable pricing and delivery conditions."
The owner is scheduled to receive the five newbuildings from the first quarter 2014 for deploying into Asia-Europe service.
The vessels adopted an eco-friendly engine minimizing CO2 emissions and maximizing fuel efficiency.
In addition, it introduced anti-piracy devices including bullet-proof glass even for C-Deck.