With its latest newbuilding orders, the shipping company CMA CGM is preparing to overtake Maersk to take second place in the liner ranking behind MSC.
Maersk was the unqualified market leader in international liner shipping for decades before the changing of the guard three years ago. Gianluigi Aponte’s MSC overtook it and has since extended its lead to more than 1.8 million TEU with a fleet capacity of 6.42 million TEU. Now the Danes (4.53 million TEU) could also lose second place – to their French competitors.
Although CMA CGM (3.87 million TEU), managed by Rodolphe Saadé, is still around 660,000 TEU behind Maersk in third place in the global ranking of the largest carriers, the French company has double the capacity in its order book and is therefore in the fast lane.
The industry service Alphaliner shows a total of 1.54 million TEU in newbuildings for CMA CGM. Maersk, on the other hand, has only 742,000 TEU. If the existing fleet and the order book are added together, the French are already ahead: once all ships have been delivered, they would have a good 5.4 million TEU, compared to just under 5.3 million TEU for the Danes. It would therefore only be a matter of time before the two liner shipping companies swap places in the ranking.
The positions behind them are relatively stable. Cosco at No. 4 (3.35 million TEU) has a lead of around 1 million TEU over Hapag-Lloyd at No. 5 (2.35 million TEU). The order book of the Chinese (864,000 TEU) is also twice as large as that of Hamburg (442,000 TEU), which will expand its fleet to around 2.7 million TEU.
The next Asian shipping companies could pose more of a threat to Hapag-Lloyd. ONE (Singapore) currently has 1.98 million TEU in its fleet and 610,000 TEU inbound – a total of 2.6 million TEU. Evergreen (Taiwan) will add a further 803,000 TEU to its fleet of 1.8 million TEU in the coming years. This also adds up to a good 2.6 million TEU.
