Over the past twelve months, Maersk has been the ocean carrier with the strongest growth in the intra-North Europe market. The Danish firm was, in fact, the only mainline operator (MLO) that managed to increase both market share and capacity by a notable margin. With its strong increase, Maersk clearly went against the trend, since all other majors showed flat or marginal growth at best.
Overall, intra-North European service capacity grew by 17%, or 43,000 teu, compared to July 2024, as carriers deployed more ships (235 vs 223) of a larger average size (1,253 teu vs 1,128 teu) in intra-North European services.
Alphaliner has calculated the market shares of each carrier offering regular intraNorth European container services compared to a year ago.
Maersk made the biggest jump in the league of North Europe’s largest operators. The carrier climbed five positions in just one year, claiming the second spot, right after MSCCargo. The Copenhagen-based carrier has increased its market share from just 3.7%, or 9,300 teu last year, to 13.5% today, equal to just under 40,000 teu.
However, Maersk’s disproportionately high growth in capacity and market share came as no surprise. The carrier’s extra capacity of 30,000 teu originates from the ‘hub and spoke’ concept that Maersk implemented earlier this year with its ‘Gemini’ partner HapagLloydAG.
In just one year, Maersk added six new intra-North European shuttles both within and outside of the Gemini Cooperation, with eight ships of between 2,400 to 5,900 teu accounting for 30,400 teu of deployed capacity.
Source: Alphaliner
