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February 26, 2026
The Asia–North America container trade saw Asian carriers strengthen their market leadership at the start of 2026, reports Alphaliner.
Last month, COSCO SHIPPING Group, ONE and Evergreen were the three carriers with the biggest fleet deployed in dedicated Far East – North America loops.
Alphaliner counted 532 ships operating at the beginning of 2026, representing a capacity of 5.2 Mteu. Overall capacity was 3.2% down year-on-year.
In January 2025, CMA CGM ranked as the number two on the trade. Its capacity was down 15.2% y-o-y last month, but the French carrier might have regained already the third spot as the difference with Evergreen was small. The carrier’s temporary capacity loss was due to the fact that not all services were fully staffed at the time of our data collection.
In the case of Maersk, ranked sixth, there are changes explaining the -24.3% yo-y capacity reduction. The Danish carrier has closed its ‘TPX’ service between the Far East, Tacoma and Alaska in February last year when it joined forces with Hapag-Lloyd in the new Gemini Cooperation.
Its membership of Gemini has significantly increased Hapag-Lloyd’s fleet on the trade (+24.3%). The Hamburg-based carrier is the single tonnage provider for loops such as the Far East – US East Coast ‘TP12 / US2’ and ‘TP16 / US4’ in which a total of 27 vessels of 8,750 – 13,900 teu are deployed.
The big alliance reshuffle of February has however not changed the market structure that much. In January 2025, three alliances with nine carriers controlled 74.6% of all capacity on the trade. One year later, three alliances with eight carriers deploy 73,7% of all tonnage
Source: Alphaliner
