Records continue to fall for Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), the world’s largest container shipping line, as the latest data from Alphaliner shows the Geneva-based carrier’s fleet has surpassed the 7 million TEU mark. The carrier now has a fleet of 7,002,757 TEUS, with an orderbook of over 2 million. To put MSC’s current fleet into perspective, it is larger than the combined fleet of Gemini Cooperation, a rival operating on the major east-west trades and comprised of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd. Similarly, MSC’s current fleet, excluding its orderbook, is larger than the combined fleets of the Premier Alliance members, a group of Asian carriers comprised of Yang Ming, HMM and Ocean Network Express (ONE).
Last week, MSC purchased the NEWNEW STAR 2, built in 2007 with a capacity of 3534 TEUS, from the Chinese shipowner Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping, and the vessel is expected to be renamed MSC RABAT IV, according to Alphaliner. This vessel, one of approximately 400 secondhand ships purchased by MSC in 2020, has allowed the line founded by Gianluigi Aponte to surpass the 7 million TEU barrier, a size that its competitors are unlikely to reach in the near future.
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MSC has tripled its size in the last decade thanks to a massive newbuild campaign and a historic foray into the secondhand markets. In early 2022, MSC became the world’s largest container line by operated vessel capacity, surpassing Maersk, which had held the top spot in the rankings for more than a quarter of a century.
Ahead of Maersk in reefer containers
According to Alphaliner, MSC has now also overtaken its competitor, Maersk, in the number of reefer containers. Last year, MSC already became the world’s largest container shipping company in terms of container capacity.
Maersk was still leading in a previous count, but now sails with a slightly lower number of reefer container connections than MSC. However, Maersk’s vessels are relatively better equipped with reefer containers: for the Danish company, the connections represent 23.1% of the total capacity, while for MSC they represent 20.3%. The Israeli carrier ZIM has the highest percentage of reefer container capacity (23.7%), but has a smaller fleet than the market leaders. CMA CGM follows the two market leaders with approximately 375,000 reefer container connections (21.8%), followed by Cosco with around 230,000 units (16.3%). Hapag-Lloyd, Evergreen and ONE have between 200,000 and 100,000 plugs, in descending order of size.
