With the takeover of DB Schenker, the Danish logistics company DSV is closing in on the sea freight market leader Kühne + Nagel.
The sale of Deutsche Bahn’s lucrative logistics subsidiary to DSV has now been officially confirmed. For the €14.3bn that it will soon have to transfer to Berlin, the Copenhagen-based group will receive a major boost for its sea freight business, among other things.
The Danes themselves generated revenue of DKK 13.4bn (€1.8bn) with their sea freight division last year and transported a good 2.5 million TEU. This put them in fourth place in the global ranking of sea freight forwarders at the end of 2023. Both figures were significantly lower than in the previous year. However, DB Schenker, previously number 5, now adds a volume of just under 1.8 million TEU.
DSV and Kühne+Nagel almost on a par
With a combined volume of almost 4.3 million TEU, DSV-Schenker moves up to second place worldwide and is very close to market leader Kuehne+Nagel (4.3 million TEU in 2023). China’s Sinotrans (3.9 million TEU) and Deutsche Post DHL (3.1 million TEU), on the other hand, have slipped to third and fourth place.
The sea freight forwarding market is highly competitive and highly fragmented due to the presence of many players. Between 2012 and 2022, the volume transported across the oceans tripled, in line with container traffic. Last year, however, all leading companies had to accept heavy losses.
DSV had already significantly expanded its presence on the oceans five years ago with the takeover of Panalpina. At that time, volumes totalled 1.5 million TEU and 1.4 million TEU.
