The two largest feeder operators, X-Press Feeders and Unifeeder, have significantly expanded their fleets due to growing demand.
X-Press Feeders, based in Singapore, overtook Unifeeder last summer and has since become the largest provider in this market segment. At that time, its total capacity was 134,773 TEU. In the meantime, the lead has grown significantly.
The company, which ranks 13th in the Alphaliner ranking of the largest container shipping companies, has seen its fleet grow by almost 22% (+35,000 TEU) since October 2023 and now has 187,000 TEU. The global liner fleet grew by just 10.9% in the same period.
At the same time, Unifeeder (17th place) has increased its fleet capacity by 23,000 TEU to 157,000 TEU, which corresponds to a growth rate of 17.9%. The lead is now 30,000 TEU, compared with 18,000 TEU a year ago.
Lines increasingly using feeder services
Both shipping companies are benefiting from the crisis in the Red Sea, which has forced most liner shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal and rely on feeder services instead. This has led to an upswing in short-haul traffic, for example between the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent or in intra-Med traffic. Unifeeder has just launched a new Egypt-Ukraine service via its Mediterranean offshoot Unimed, linking the Egyptian port of Port Said with Khomomorsk in Ukraine.
The two shortsea providers differ significantly in their fleet strategies. X-Press Feeders relies on a high proportion of its own ships (49 out of 96). In contrast, Unifeeder covers its tonnage requirements entirely via the charter market, including with German shipping companies such as Elbdeich.
In addition, X-Press, as part of the Sea Consortium company, has a large order book of 77,000 TEU, which corresponds to 40% of the existing fleet. This includes six 11,000 TEU container ships, which will enter service in 2027 and 2028 and will be by far the company’s largest vessels. At Unifeeder, there are eight ships with 16,000 TEU (10.2%).
