SeaIntel: Impact of Mega Boxship Deliveries on Asia-North Europe Trade

The current orderbook for 1.42 million TEU of boxship giants will impact the capacity market shares between the three Alliances on the Asia to North Europe trade lane, SeaIntel informed.

Namely, the orderbook of 20,000+ TEU vessels is expected to push the Ocean Alliance to gradually match the Asia-NEUR capacity market share of 2M by 2019, and surpass them in 2020, while THE Alliance is expected to gradually lose market share.

THE Alliance will see their capacity market share decline from 25% to 21%, while Ocean Alliance will gradually match the 38% capacity market share of 2M by 2019, and then gradual surpass them in 2020.

If HMM confirms their rumoured order, they may reach a capacity market share of 6-7% in 2021, while the alliances will see their shares drop correspondingly, according to SeaIntel.

Even if 2018-2021 demand is expected to outpace that of 2012-2017, it will likely be necessary to close 1-2 services to balance supply and demand.

“Estimating future demand growth is fraught with difficulties, but industry consensus seems to suggest that demand growth will be better in the coming years, than what we’ve seen in 2012-2017. If this is the case, then closing three services would seem like overkill, but balancing supply and demand would probably necessitate the closure of 1-2 services, depending upon the underlying demand growth,” Alan Murphy, SeaIntel CEO, said.