Capacity growth on container routes between the Far East and Europe in April came to roughly 10% compared to the same time last year. Two shipping lines were the principal growth drivers.
Ocean Alliance, one of the major players within container shipping, has overtaken Maersk and MSC’s 2M as the alliance with the largest capacity on the main container tradelanes between Asia and Europe, writes Alphaliner in an analysis.
Last month, the analyst firm counted 348 container vessels on the routes, totaling a capacity of 5.45 million teu – an increase of 10.4% compared to April 2021.
Capacity growth on container routes between the two continents is thereby more than twice as high as growth in the global container fleet, which stands at 4.3%. However, growth on Asia-North America beats it with an entire 24%.
The increase on Asia-Europe is due, not least of all, to a marked capacity growth at two of Ocean Alliance’s three carriers, Taiwanese Evergreen and French CMA CGM, which this past year added a respective 147,000 and 118,700 teu to their container fleets on namely these routes – an increase of 35.4% and 18.7%, respectively, compared to the same time last year.
The two carriers have both deployed larger newbuilds on the routes, and as regards Evergreen, vessel Ever Given is sailing once again – unlike at the same time last year, when the container ship was detained by Egyptian authorities after going aground in the Suez Canal.
Lower growth at Maersk alliance
Ocean Alliance’s market share is now 36.8% and thus surpasses rivaling alliance 2M, consisting of MSC and Maersk, whose share has dived to 35.6% compared to April 2021, when it represented 36.9%. With capacity increases of 11.6% and 1.1%, respectively, the two carriers are considerably behind their competitors in Ocean Alliance.
The three alliances
Nonetheless, MSC and Maersk are still the biggest individual players on container routes between Asia and Europe. In April, 54 MSC ships were in operation on the routes with a total capacity of 1.02 million teu – or 18.7% of the market. As such, the Swiss-Italian carrier has surpassed competitor and partner Maersk.
Alphaliner furthermore highlights that the dynamic on the Asia-Europe routes are markedly different from the routes between Asia and North America. On Asia-Europe routes, ”newcomers” only have a very modest market share of 1.2%. The major carriers are still completely dominant.
