The three major seaports on the North Range – Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg – are losing market share and falling further down the rankings of the world’s largest container hubs.
In the list of the world’s largest container ports, all three locations listed there have lost handling volumes and have each slipped down two places as a result.
Although Rotterdam remains Europe’s most important container port, it now ranks 13th in the annual statistics with just 13.4 million TEU. In the previous year, 14.5 million TEU was still enough for 11th place.
The twin port of Antwerp-Bruges also dropped two places after losing around 1 million TEU. With 12.5 million TEU, the Belgian hub now ranks 15th.
Hamburg slips down
Hamburg has now slipped out of the top 20. Bremerhaven suffered the same fate years ago. With just 4.2 million TEU, the Weser port is no longer even among the 30 largest locations. Hamburg is listed in 22nd place and also had to let two competitors pass it by. Last year, 7.75 million TEU were loaded, around 577,000 TEU less than in 2022.
Other ports, on the other hand, were able to move up places despite the global economic burdens. These include Dubai/Jebel Ali (from 12 to 10) and Port Kelang (from 14 to 12), as well as Tangier Med (from 22 to 19) and Qinzhou in China (from 31 to 27) in the lower half of the table.
