After enjoying strong growth during the shipping surge experienced over the past two years, non-alliance carriers are losing market share. With the current levels of overcapacity rising across most segments of the container shipping industry and possibly getting worse as more new tonnage enters the market, Sea-Intelligence is predicting that the market share for the independent carriers will continue to decline.
“As the market strengthened after the initial COVID hit, there was a confluence of small carriers that started to deploy capacity, especially on the transpacific trade,” said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence. He notes major carriers also started to introduce services outside the alliance networks. “The idea was to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the very high freight rate environment.”
Taiwan-based carrier Wan Hai for example in 2020 launched an independent transpacific route after its alliance with Pacific International Lines and COSCO ended. In addition, new specialized carriers emerged, seeking to offer niche services and appealing to shippers that found it difficult to place smaller cargoes with the big carriers.
Read more in an article from The Maritime Executive.