The highs and lows of the shipping industry in the past few years brought about many changes on different levels. One of the interesting changes the market saw was the growth and adaptability of container carriers.
A new analysis conducted by Sea Intelligence focused on the changes in their market share between Q1-2019 and Q1-2023. The analysis firm used two main factors to determine a carrier’s market share: the global liftings of a carrier and the size of its operated fleet.
However, when it comes to global liftings data, not all carriers share this data openly. Therefore, Sea Intelligence based this part of their analysis only on Maersk, CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM and ZIM.
“Five out of the six carriers are seen to have lost market share based on liftings – which is of course a clear indication that some of the carriers not reporting liftings data, must have increased their market shares quite substantially,” says the report.
According to Sea Intelligence, ZIM was the only carrier of the six to increase its market share throughout the 4-year period. Since Q1 2019, ZIM has increased its market share by nearly 0.3%. On the other hand, Maersk was the carrier that lost the largest market share, with an almost -2% loss. This is followed by COSCO at nearly -1% loss and HMM at almost -0.5% loss.
More data is available across all carriers when it comes to a carrier’s operated fleet. Comparing June 2019 data with June 2023 data, analysts found that MSC achieved the biggest market share growth. MSC grew its capacity by nearly 3.5%, while Maersk’s fleet fell -3.5%.
CMA CGM, Evergreen, HMM and ZIM were other carriers with positive growth in this criteria. However, the capacity operated by COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, and Yang Ming has reduced since 2019, according to the report.
In conclusion, the report shows that “2.4% of global market share has shifted away from the top-10 carriers and into the segment of small and medium-sized carriers.” Nevertheless, MSC remains the “leader of the pack” with an operated fleet exceeding five million TEU.
