MSC continues historic fleet expansion. In little over two years, the carrier has acquired second-hand vessels with a capacity exceeding several competitor’s armadas.
Container giant MSC has passed a milestone in its fleet expansion.
Since August 2020, Swiss-Italian carrier has purchased 263 secondhand vessels with combined carrying capacity exceeding 1 million teu, writes Alphaliner.
That is larger than the entire South Korean carrier HMM’s fleet.
HMM is the world’s eighth largest carrier, and MSC surpassed Maersk in pole position as the world’s biggest line company in the beginning of 2022.
MSC’s secondhand splurge is come under the leadership of CEO Søren Toft, who joined the company in January 2020.
He previously served as chief operating officer at Maersk, where he played an instrumental role in the acquisition of German competitor Hamburg Süd.
According to Alphaliner, the purchases were originally about taking advantage of cheap assets prices in the start of the pandemic.
But during the demand boom in during Covid-19, it became a matter of securing scarcer tonnage to capitalize on skyrocketing freight rates.
With steam out of container market, the MSC kan spend some of recent years’ earnings on buying vessels at a reduced cost.
The carrier, owned by the Aponte family, shows no signs of slowing down. Reliable Alphaliner writes, that the carrier has purchased an additional three ships recently.
MSC commands a fleet at a combined ship capacity of nearly 4.6 million teu with orders placed for 127 ships, corresponding to a markets share of roughly 17.6 percent according to Aplhaliner.
Maersk in second place commands a fleet of a combined 4.2 million teu, with orders placed for 31 vessels, giving the Danish shipping group a market share of 16.2 percent.
Maersk has repeatedly stressed having strayed from the strategy of being the largest operator, and is actively striving to transform into a integrated logistics operator focusing on comprehensive transport from A to B.
