Container ship MSC Gulsun of MSC

Container ship MSC Gulsun of MSC (Photo: MSC)

 

MSC overtook Maersk to become the world's largest container shipping company 16 months ago and continues to buy more old ships and build new ships to grow its fleet rapidly.

In its weekly newsletter, Alphaliner said that MSC's fleet reached 4,956,720 TEUs on 753 vessels as of May 16, and with new-build ships MSC Michel Cappelini and MSC Gemma to be delivered from Yangzijiang and CSSC respectively. This will help the shipping line MSC cross the threshold of 5 million TEU before the end of May.

Putting MSC's fleet size and growth rate at 5 million TEUs, this is the equivalent of the entire global container shipping fleet at the turn of the millennium.

With a massive new-build order list of 127 vessels with a total capacity of 1.66 million TEUs, the 6 million TEU mark for MSC's fleet is not more than a year away. Alphaliner estimates it could reach a fleet size of 6 million TEUs by mid-2024, although the exact timing depends on vessel purchases and sales.

The 2M alliance with Maersk officially expires in early 2025, and MSC is considered to have the scale to operate alone outside of major alliances, as it has previously laid out plans to do so.

“Unlike most other shipping lines within the top-ten, MSC’s sheer scale will allow the carrier to offer attractive port pairs on all key trade lanes without joining another alliance set-up. Alphaliner nevertheless expects MSC to maintain se- lected smaller-scale partnerships on a number of trades,” the weekly report said.
 

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Source: Phaata.com (According to SeatradeMaritime)

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