With August logging the highest ever monthly figure for teu volumes handled worldwide, 2025 is shaping up to be a second strong year of growth for the container market.
At the half-year point, global volumes had risen 4.5% on the same period in 2024, dropping just slightly to 4.4% at the eight-month mark, according to Container Trade Statistics.
All individual regions showed year-on-year expansion with the exception of North America.
At carrier level, Hapag-Lloyd and COSCO Group were the only lines to beat the market average, with volumes of 6.7 Mteu and 13.3 Mteu for first-half 2025, a rise of 11% and 7% respectively.
For the remaining top-10 carriers, the majority of volume gains were below 2.5%, including Maersk at 2.2%, Evergreen 1.0%, ONE 1.5%, CMA CGM 2.0% and ZIM 2.3%.
HMM was an outlier, recording a slightly higher gain of 3.7%, driven by extra volumes to Europe and Latin America.
Source: Alphaliner
