Blog Post

MDST and Global Shippers Forum launch the Container Shipping Market Quarterly Review #3

  • By Antonella Teodoro
  • 02 Jun, 2021

The global economy depends very heavily upon the effective connectivity, capacity, reliability and cost effectiveness of the container industry. It is served by a fleet of around 5,000 container ships with a combined deployed service capacity of 200m TEU p.a. where 90% of the capacity on deep-sea services is controlled by the leading 10 shipping lines. The value of goods they transport, around $6-7 trillion p.a., equates to the combined GDP of Germany and the UK. This quarterly review seeks to bring together and analyse supply, demand, performance and economic data that uses common coding definitions to facilitate cross referencing to provide a coherent description of this industry.

The data sources are (effectively) in the public domain. The Review is based upon data that MDST has been collating (on supply and demand) for 25 years. We are very interested in any feedback. In future editions, we will extend the richness of the data and analysis including for example shipping lines’ capacity shares and the logistic performance indicators.

We are delighted to collaborate with the Global Shippers Forum in this venture, representing as it does the widest possible grouping of users of the container network. We trust it will be of interest to shippers, ports, lines, regulators, governments and international institutions alike.

Share by: