News / Carriers battle for market share as demand falls and alliance shuffle looms

© Christian Horz

The shuffling of container shipping alliances in 2025 is prompting liner operators to fight for market share, impeding capacity discipline, despite a relentless fall in freight rates.

Linerlytica’s report today notes that just 37 box ships, amounting to 77,185 teu, equivalent to 0.3% of the active fleet, are currently unemployed.

The consultancy noted: “Demand for additional tonnage shows no signs of cooling down, with carriers snapping up all tonnage coming open on the charter market in the next two months. The idle fleet remains unusually low at this time of the year, while scrap sales for the year remain well short of 100,000 teu as carriers set the stage for a fresh battle for market share ahead of the 2025 alliance reshuffle.”

The operators’ unwillingness to trim capacity makes it difficult to enforce a planned GRI of $1,000-$2,000 per 40ft for Asia-Europe services on 1 November.

Currently, 504 ships, of 7.33m teu, are operating on Asia-Europe (including the Mediterranean) routes, and this is up 25% year on year.

While in the wake of the recent strikes along US east coast ports, Asia-USEC capacity dipped 3% year on year, to 254 ships, of 2.72m teu, while slot supply on the Asia-US west coast went up 22%, to 312 ships, of 2.67m teu.

Linerlytica said: “Carriers have failed to adjust Asia-North Europe capacity to match the reduction in cargo demand, with scheduled capacity from Asia expected to rebound by over 25% in the coming weeks. Apart from selective void sailings, none of the carriers on the Asia-Europe route is planning any winter capacity reductions. This would jeopardise their efforts to arrest the decline in freight rates.”

It speaks volumes that mainline operators remain on the hunt for tonnage, last week being one of the most active for chartering, as many new fixtures and extensions were concluded, with Maersk, CMA CGM, Cosco, Hapag-Lloyd, and Evergreen among those that committed to new charters or renewals.

Linerlytica noted: “There’s limited vessel availability across all size segments, and forward fixtures are now a common feature, even for ships of 1,500-3,000 teu, where previously they were limited to the larger sizes.”