Structure and market share of shipping alliances change in 2025

Since April 2017, the three-alliance structure including Ocean Alliance, THE Alliance and 2M Alliance has shaped the shipping industry.

After nearly eight years, this structure is expected to change in February 2025 with the emergence of new alliances including: Gemini Cooperation (Maersk – Hapag-Lloyd) and Premier Alliance (HMM – ONE – Yang Ming). Meanwhile, Ocean Alliance (CMA CGM – COSCO – Evergreen – OOCL) will retain its structure. This will create a new look for the container shipping market.

According to Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, capacity share is an interesting metric to measure the presence of a shipping alliance on any trade lane.

The data below illustrates this metric for three current alliances over their lifetimes on the Asia-North America West Coast (Asia-NAWC) and Asia-North Europe (Asia-NEUR) trade lanes. These figures focus entirely on capacity share within the alliances.

Source: Sea-Intelligence.com, Sunday Spotlight, issue 693

Source: Sea-Intelligence.com, Sunday Spotlight, issue 693

On the Asia-North America West Coast trade lane, Ocean Alliance has consistently been the leading alliance in terms of deployed capacity, with 2M consistently trailing behind. Over the years, there has been little movement in this ranking, reflecting the stability of the market. However, THE Alliance has recently made a breakthrough, narrowing the gap with Ocean Alliance.

On the Asia-North Europe trade, Ocean Alliance overtook 2M in terms of capacity share in late 2018 and has maintained the lead since then. 2M remains a close second, while THE Alliance pursues a differentiated market strategy, consistently holding the smallest capacity share in the region.

With the upcoming launch of new shipping alliance groups in February 2025, major changes in trade dynamics are expected. It will be interesting to see how the new alliances leverage the power of collaboration to shape their strategies on different trade lanes and where each alliance will prioritize its focus.

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Source: Phaata.com (via Sea-Intelligence)

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