News / Aggressive fleet builders HMM and Zim overtake Yang Ming in liner ranking

© Enrico Powell |

Yang Ming’s conservative containership fleet expansion has seen the Taiwanese operator slip down the liner ranks.

In 2020, at the start of the Covid-fuelled boom, Yang Ming was the eighth-largest box line. Now it is overshadowed by peers that embarked on aggressive programmes of newbuilding orders and second-hand buys, and is ranked 10th.

Yang Ming took its time to order new ships, a process observers blamed on bureaucratic decision-making, as the Taiwanese state has a significant stake in the company. Taiwan’s Ministry ...