Shipyard orders rose by 73 percent for the month in May.

Chinese shipbuilding companies got 4.04 million TEUs (twenty-foot container equivalent units) orders in May, passing South Korea and Japan to become the largest order receiver globally, the China Securities Journal reported on Friday.

These orders are worth of $1.1 billion.

The orders indicate that a rising number of ship owners saw the shipbuilding price has bottomed out, and they believe the time is ripe to "buy low", said analysts.

From January to May, global shipbuilding orders soared 70 percent year-on-year to 40.67 million TEUs.