Struggling to Catch Up with Orders, HMM... Global Gap Widens Further

8th Place Among Global Top 10 New Order Volumes

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Despite efforts to rebuild the shipping industry, HMM, the largest domestic deep-sea container shipping company, is expected to see the gap in fleet capacity widen further compared to major global shipping companies that are expanding their fleets.

According to Alphaliner, a specialized maritime logistics research institute, as of this month, HMM's newbuilding order volume totals 163,200 TEU (1 TEU = one 20-foot container), ranking 8th among the top 10 global shipping companies.

The shipping company with the largest newbuilding order volume is MSC of Switzerland, ranked 2nd in the industry, with a total of 916,948 TEU. This accounts for 22.4% of MSC's total fleet capacity (4,089,552 TEU). Once all newbuild deliveries are completed, MSC's total fleet capacity will reach 5,006,500 TEU, surpassing Maersk.

Denmark's Maersk, the industry leader, has a newbuilding order volume of 46,320 TEU, which is 1.1% of its total fleet capacity (4,203,125 TEU), placing it at the bottom among the top 10 global companies. However, instead of increasing newbuilding orders, Maersk is expanding its business into land logistics, rail, and air transport centered on maritime shipping, attempting a major transformation into a new global integrated transport company.

Global shipping companies ranked 3rd to 7th are also increasing their newbuilding orders to grow their size. Following MSC, Taiwan's national carrier Evergreen placed 2nd with newbuilding orders totaling 687,928 TEU. This is close to half (49.7%) of Evergreen's total fleet capacity (1,385,477 TEU), and it is known to aim for entry into the industry's top 5 by expanding to 2 million TEU in the future.

Following are France's CMA-CGM Group (newbuilding orders 540,988 TEU), China's COSCO (425,272 TEU), Germany's Hapag-Lloyd (415,120 TEU), and Japan's ONE (251,692 TEU), all of which have newbuilding order volumes overwhelmingly larger than HMM's.

Taiwan's latecomer shipping companies Yang Ming and Wan Hai are also threatening HMM by recently expanding their newbuilding orders. Yang Ming has placed newbuilding orders totaling 97,820 TEU, raising its fleet capacity to 730,000 TEU, while Wan Hai has placed newbuilding orders of 257,482 TEU, which is 60.6% of its total fleet capacity (425,221 TEU).

An industry insider pointed out, "HMM needs additional follow-up plans to grow into a global shipping company."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.