COVID-driven cargo demand has dramatically altered the transpacific shipping landscape, according to Paris-based container consultancy Alphaliner.
There is now far more container shipping capacity in the trade than pre-pandemic, reports New York's FreightWaves. Capacity keeps rising, with more new shipping services focusing on the Asia-east coast lane than Asia-west coast.
Carrier competition is up, with more players overall and a lower share controlled by the three giant global alliances. The transpacific liner leaderboard is different as Covid-era demand trends spur new deployment strategies.
The transpacific's top five liners are Maersk, CMA CGM, MSC, Cosco and ONE, according to Alphaliner. Back in mid-2020, as the US was coming out of initial Covid lockdowns, Cosco was the transpacific leader by far.
Maersk was a distant fourth at that time, with almost 30 per cent less capacity than Cosco. MSC, the No 3 carrier in the transpacific today, was No 6 two years ago.
"MSC and Maersk were by far the fastest-growing carriers in the trade," said Alphaliner
It calculated that overall transpacific capacity is up 24 per cent year on year, now comprising 702 containerships with a total capacity of 5.75 million TEU. That annual growth rate mirrors a 24.7 per cent increase between April 2020 and April 2021.
Alphaliner's data confirms the coastal switch reported by others. Asia-east coast capacity is up 28.1 per cent compared to last April, outpacing Asia-west coast growth of 20.5 per cent.
Alphaliner's data shows that the alliances' share of the transpacific total is actually falling - a trend that should play well for ocean carriers in congressional hearings.
In mid-2020, the three alliances - 2M (Maersk, MSC), Ocean Alliance (Cosco, CMA CGM, Evergreen, OOCL) and THE Alliance (Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Yang Ming, HMM) - controlled 89 per cent of transpacific capacity. The Ocean Alliance had 39 per cent, THE Alliance 30 per cent, 2M 20 per cent.
At this time last year, the alliances' share had edged down to 82.2 per cent, according to Alphaliner. Since then, their share has sunk to 67.7 per cent.
Alliances are still growing transpacific capacity on a nominal basis but at a more moderate pace than the overall market, causing their share to decline.
In the spot market, some indexes show a moderation in rates, but to levels that are still well above where they were last year and far above pre-Covid numbers.
Drewry's Shanghai-Los Angeles assessment was US$8,782 per FEU last week (excluding premiums), the lowest it has been since early July 2021 and down 14 per cent from rates at the end of last year. That's the good news for shippers. The bad news is this is up 112 per cent year on year and over triple pre-Covid levels.
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