Container shipping hits new fleet and capacity milestones

Container shipping is reaching several new milestones at once, according to industry analysts Alphaliner.

The fully cellular fleet has exceeded 6,700 ships for the first time in history: 6,706 vessels now in active operation, carrying 33.6M TEU. Total fleet capacity across all vessel types sits just under 34 Mteu.

Far East–Europe weekly capacity just broke its own all-time record for the second consecutive month, exceeding 530,000 TEU in March. The previous milestone of 520,000 TEU per week was set towards the end of February.

MSCCargo is closing in on 1,000 operated vessels. At 992 ships and 7.26 Mteu, representing 21.5% of the entire global fleet, the company’s scale continues growing.

Current orderbook stats indicate Evergreen (+46%), cmacgm (+43%) and COSCOSHIPPING (+39%) are committing the most towards future capacity. HapagLloydAG stands out as the most conservative among the top five at +20% of current capacity. Wan Hai, at rank 11, has the most aggressive growth stance of all with an orderbook equivalent to 73% of its existing fleet.

Owned vs. chartered fleets also tell two different stories. HMM (17.9% chartered) and Evergreen (29.6%) own the vast majority of what they operate, which is capital intensive but with full control over their capacity base. ONE (53.7%) and Yang Ming (51.9%) take a more asset-light approach, leaning on chartered tonnage for flexibility rather than committing to owned vessels.

Source: Alphaliner