The shipping giants that control the global maritime container trade are getting even bigger, according to the latest figures to come to light.
The top ten liner shipping companies by capacity control 85.4% of the global fleet with Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest shipping company, increasing its fleet by 7.1% since the start of the year .
The increase was even higher than the industry average of 6.2%, according to Alphaliner.
Italo-Swiss MSC and Israeli interests ZIM are the two fastest growing liner shipping companies during the first seven months of the year.
MSC’s fleet recently surpassed 6 million teu in capacity, with the Aponte family-owned shipping company increasing its capacity by 400,000 teu this year, equivalent to more than half the total size of Yang Ming Shipping, which is the smallest among the top 10 in the world ranking of liner shipping companies. In percentage terms, the fastest growing shipping companies in the top ten were ZIM (+17.5%) and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd (+10.6%) which is in fifth place with 2,172,233 teu.
Leading position
MSC continues to steadily grow its fleet through a combination of newbuild deliveries and the purchase of used tonnage, the NEWS report says.
According to Alphaliner, the Geneva-based shipping line’s market leadership appears assured, as its order book of 1.20 million teu is the largest of all and equaled only by CMA CGM’s third-largest carrier, the which also amounts to about 1.20 million teu. Thus, in the coming years CMA CGM, which currently has a transport capacity of 3,754,697 teu, will probably surpass the Danish Maersk and become the second largest container shipping company in the world. As for Maersk, last year it reduced its total capacity by 2.7%, but this year it further expanded its fleet by 5.6%, slightly below the market average, to 4,345,927 teu as it took delivery of the first four of the 18 Equinoxclass vessels with methanol dual-fuel engines, while also adding three neo-panamax charter vessels.
This year, Yang Ming is the only shipping company in the Top 10 that reduced its fleet (-2%) during the first half of the year, to 693,548 teu, as a result of which it was overtaken by ZIM (728,011 teu). In eighth place is the Korean HMM with 840,952 teu (+7.3% compared to the beginning of the year), in seventh the Taiwanese Evergreen with 1,690,840 teu (+2.8%) and in sixth the Japanese EMU with 1,914. 153 teu (+6.3%) and finally in fourth place the Chinese COSCO with 3,243,666 teu (+6.2%).
Source: ot.gr
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