MSC’s standalone Asia-North Europe shipping services have already captured up to a 9% market share of the trade, according to new data from Sea-Intelligence Consulting.
The analyst says this indicates how advanced the Geneva-headquartered carrier is for life outside its 2M partnership with Maersk, which is set to formally end in February.
Assuming US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) approval is granted, Maersk will form the Gemini Cooperation with German carrier Hapag-Lloyd.
“With Maersk joining Hapag-Lloyd to form the Gemini Cooperation, MSC, it seems, is already shifting its focus onto its own-operated services,” noted Sea-Intelligence Consulting CEO Alan Murphy.
“MSC has been growing capacity market share for its standalone services (offered outside the 2M alliance) on the transpacific and Asia-Europe trades,” he added.
This would appear to be part of structural shift in the deepsea container shipping trades, which are expected to be less dominated by the alliance system in the near future. Last week, Sea-Intelligence noted that some 30% of deployed capacity on the eastbound transpacific Asia-US West Coast trade was now being offered by carriers outside alliances.
However, the carrier that will really drive this trend is MSC, the world’s largest box shipping line, with its global capacity share of 20%.
On Asia-North Europe, MSC’s non-2M standalone services have gone from a market share of zero, at this point last year, to almost 9% currently.
Sea-Intelligence data notes that the only other top-10 carriers to run standalone Asai-North Europe services are Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM, which respectively hold market shares of around 2% and 0.75%, and which have launched extra services to cater for the current elevated demand.
“This increase for MSC should be seen not only in the context of the extreme pressure the markets are currently under, but of course also in the context of the termination of the 2M Alliance,” Mr Murphy continued.
“Clearly, MSC is beginning to carve out services on its own prior to the 2M termination date, whereas Maersk is not doing the same.
“It can also be seen that MSC began doing this before the Red Sea crisis – although an acceleration has clearly happened after the outbreak of the crisis.
“On Asia-Mediterranean, the move from MSC to increase standalone capacity share predates the Red Sea crisis, with MSC standalone services accounting for approximately 9% of deployed capacity in the tradelane since the second quarter of 2023,” he said.
The analyst said a similar trend could be seen on Asia-North America routes, “especially on Asia to the North American east coast, where MSC has been increasing its standalone capacity market share from 3% to 6%”.
Meanwhile, on the transpacific Asia-North American west coast trade, its standalone services “have held a somewhat consistent capacity market share of around 6%, outside of a temporary increase to around 12% during the height of the pandemic, in late 2021”.
According to the eeSea liner database, MSC currently operates two independent Asia-North Europe services: the Britannia, which deploys 13 vessels with an average capacity of 8,200 teu; and the Swan, which deploys 14 ships with an average 15,400 teu capacity. On Asia-Mediterranean, it independently operates the Dragon service’s 17 vessels with an average capacity of 14,700 teu.
In comparison, Hapag-Lloyd’s sole independent Asia-North Europe service is the recently introduced CGX, which deploys 12 ships with an average capacity of 5,000 teu.