by Lloyd's List
12 May 2025 (Lloyd's List) - GLOBAL container demand responded with vigour in March helping the liner sector chalk up a healthy growth figure for the first quarter of 2025, in what was the industry’s second busiest month on record.
While a major plus for the liner industry, the traffic trend cannot be taken at face value; the devil lies within the detail. Frontloading amid trade war uncertainty almost certainly aided in the early annual cargo surge, as shippers rushed to avoid additional levies. Analysts have also highlighted the growing concern over trade imbalances as a result.
The latest figures published by Container Trades Statistics show volumes increased to 16.2m teu in March, up 22.1% on February. The seasonal cargo rebound is more typically at around 10% following Chinese New Year.
Volume figures for March represented a 6.5% increase on last year, while volumes across the first three months were up 4.2% on 2024 from 43.1m teu to 44.8m teu.
The issue raised by analysts is how growth continues to be reserved to regional and headhaul trades, particularly the transpacific and Asia-Europe routes, while backhaul traffic continued to witness a reversal in fortunes, dropping back for a third consecutive month.
SeaIntelligence noted that trade imbalances are either growing or remaining steady on the major trades.
The concern, it said, was that as these imbalances intensified, “the reliance on, and cost of, empty equipment repositioning increases”.
The knock-on effect of this repositioning, however, is perhaps even more important, according to SeaIntelligence.
“Repositioning empty containers is a process which takes a long time, and planning has long lead times,” it said.
“That means that sudden rapid changes in actual container demand, has an increasing risk of causing localised and temporary equipment shortages.”
This risk, it said, should be noted, “especially in the light of the trade war disruptions currently impacting the market”.
These concerns were echoed by Vespucci Maritime chief executive Lars Jensen, who stressed a “growing need to move empty containers around the system” as trade imbalances widen.
On Asia-Europe trade, CTS figures showed March volumes rebound 10.4% on February, when box numbers slipped back 8.3%, which put overall traffic growth for the first quarter on the trade at 8.7%.
Industry commentators had previously said that it was hard to pinpoint any specific reason as to the robustness of Asia-Europe volumes on the trade, considering the sluggish European economy, but this could be a case of shippers hedging their bets against further disruption for the liner sector in the remainder of 2025, given the disruption of recent years.
Growth on Asia-Europe headhaul services has come at the expense of a 6% fall on the backhaul trade.
However, the imbalance on the transpacific is the one that has caught the attention of analysts.
Volume on the eastbound headhaul trade continued its growth arc through March, climbing by a further 8.9% on 2024 levels. This growth figure was also achieved across the first quarter, with cargo numbers up from 5.3m teu to 5.8m teu, in a three-month period that was particularly fruitful for California’s major ports.
Long Beach reported its busiest ever quarter between January and March. In the opposite backhaul direction volumes in the first quarter were down by as much 10.2%.
While container volumes have been strong through the first quarter of the year, the fate of the spot freight market is indicative of the underlying weaknesses in the market and more importantly signs of surplus capacity.
While Red Sea diversions continue to hold up the supply side of the market to some degree, the influx of fresh tonnage is beginning to take its toll.
The CTS Global Price Index has fallen 15% since the beginning of the year, a factor that CTS said gave “the best pointer to the future”. March’s 80 point figure is 6% down on the corresponding month of last year and just 16% up on the pre-Red Sea crisis level in November 2023.
