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SENIOR shipping executives
last year predicted that the container shipping
industry would see a rise in consolidation
in the years to come, and that the pool
of competition in the market would become
less crowded.
Now almost one year on from when we first
heard many of those projections, do we see
any signs that such an occurrence is happening,
or will happen in the not too distant future?
There are two schools of thought on the
matter. One school says that while the difficult
operating environment may claim the odd
casualty here and there, the liner landscape
going forward will not change any more than
it has in the past.
The other school is convinced that there
is a slew of mergers and acquisitions on
the horizon, and that tough times will result
in drastic measures, either forcing some
carriers out of the business altogether,
or force them to look to stay alive through
partnership.
To date, it would appear that the former
school of thought is more accurate. We have
not seen any major changes. There of course
have been some changes this year, and that
is what we will be looking at todayˇK
To understand what has changed, we must
first see what the situation was heading
into this year.
In the below pie graph we can see the
market share situation in terms of fleet
capacity as it stood at the end of 2011.
click image to enlarge
"Worldwide
container shipping capacity on December
31, 2011 stood at 15.89 million TEU, while
the number of container vessels in the market
numbered 4,919.
The twenty largest carriers then controlled
a combined market share of roughly 80 per
cent of the global containership fleet,
or 13.38 million TEU.
The top 10 carriers held a market share
of over 60 per cent at the end of last year,
headed by Maersk Line at 16 per cent, MSC
at 13 per cent and CMA CGM at nine per cent,
as shown in the above graph.
This makes for a combined market share
of 38 per cent for the top three shipping
lines in the world.
So what has changed between then and
now?
It would seem not much, judging from
the below graph.
click image to enlarge
The global fleet, as of August 21, has
changed in the sense that it has grown significantly.
The total amount of capacity has risen to
16.63 million TEU across 5,967 vessels.
This represents an increase of less than
five per cent since the end of last year.
The top 20 carriers now hold a market
share, in terms of available fleet capacity,
of 84 per cent. So it would appear from
that figure that the larger players are
growing larger in comparison to those lines
outside of the top 20, which in turn could
imply a move towards a smaller pool of competition
going forward.
For the top 10 carriers there appears
to be little change, however.
The market share for these lines remains
at 63 per cent. The only differences are
that CMA CGMˇ¦s share has slipped from nine
per cent to eight per cent and CSCL has
increased its share from three to four per
cent.
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