Shipping Companies

In a globalized world with products and supplies flying at us from around the globe, we rightly take it all for granted. How did that watch get to our doorstep? What about the shirt I ordered two days ago and magically it’s on my back 48 hours later? Planes do a lot of carrying of goods, but shipping companies are still the main players. Much of the world is ocean and as such container shipping continues to be a major means of cargo transportation in 2020.

While there does not exist an outright monopoly by one shipping company, there are presently a small handful that control nearly 75% of the market.

APM-Maersk

With 80,000 plus employees and coming off a major reshuffle, roughly four years have passed post one of the biggest layoffs in the company’s history. APM-Maersk has made a concerted effort over these four years to ramp up digitization and optimization changes and the past two years especially has seen some radical changes. APM-Maersk leads the pack with a 4,058,154-shipping capacity (TEU), a 17.8% share of the market and solely operates 316 ships, clearly surpassing number 2 on list, Mediterranean Shg Co’s 193.

Mediterranean Shg Co

The world’s second largest line, this Geneva based company counts on Italian roots with its most important port being housed in Antwerp, Belgium. Also known as MSC, the company made news earlier this year when 291 containers plunged overboard near Borkum, a German island. Yikes! Worse yet, some of the containers were hauling poisonous organic peroxides and ended up washing up on to Terschelling, a protected Dutch Island in the UNESCO biosphere reserve.

COSCO Group

The China Ocean Shipping Group Company, commonly known as COSCO, is a Chinese, state-owned company widely considered the third largest in the world. Handling a shipping capacity of 2,782,485 TEU, COSCO commands a 12.2% market share and earlier this year the Chinese firm purchased a Peruvian port which is their first in South America. The $225 million deal is a strategic play to increase their share in the emerging Latin American market. But COSCO is not solely focused on Latin America as they’ve also been actively purchasing ports in Greece, the Netherlands and various Abu Dhabi terminals throughout the UAE.

CMA CGM Group

Despite global uncertainty and with U.S./China talks escalating to worrying levels, CMA CGM reported their 2018 revenues jumped over 11%, and 14.9% in the fourth quarter alone. This equated to a record $23.48 billion in revenue which is a record for the French container transportation and shipping company. However, CMA CGM are not resting on their laurels as they’re planning a $1.2 billion cost-reduction plan due to geopolitical tensions. On the other end, investments in LNG-enabled vessels have been made which are aimed at meeting compliance with the eventual Martine Organization’s rules on emissions, set to come into effect January 1, 2020.

Hapag-Lloyd

And finally, the world’s fifth largest shipping company with a 7.3% market share, Hapag-Lloyd has decided to lay low regarding the recent trend of logistics company acquisitions (something increasingly common with the leading players on this list). While most the industry is consolidating, Hapag-Lloyd has made a concerted effort to boost on-time delivery rates. Digitalization lies at the core of this strategy and Hapag-Lloyd has gone full-in to equip their control towers with the latest connections by leveraging disparate data streams in a variety and multiple formats.

Odds are your house is chalk full of items that were shipped by one of these. Take a moment to thank them (just pick one, it’s Ok), because the guys and gals behind all this shipping are doing wonderful things for humanity.