Prospect of global container ship market

By Cai Jingwei

The year of 2017 is destined to be extremely unusual for the global container ship market.Hanjin Shipping, the largest shipping company of South Korea has officially gone bankruptcy and liquidation, the alliance of global container shipping market has entered a new era with “three strongholds”,then, what will be the situation for future development?

The shipping market has improved and the demand for new ships will be further released

From the perspective of future development, under the in fl uence of many positive factors such as the increasing speed of recovery of Europe and other developed economies, the active economy of the Asia Paci fi c region,the “Belt and Road” initiative and so on, the global container shipping volume will continue to maintain growth, and the growth rate is expected to achieve 5%in 2018. In terms of capacity, according to the delivery schedule of handheld orders and expectations for dismantling, it is estimated that in 2018, the growth rate of global container ship fl eet is 4%, which is slower than that of the same period, the supply and demand relationship of container shipping market will be improved, which will drive the freight rate to rise slightly.

Due to the initial effect of the adjustment of the global container ship shipping market, the demand for new container ships is expected to be further released. From the perspective of the speci fi c ship type, as regards super large container ships, although the market is still in a state of excess capacity, and the demand for new ships will be limited, shipowners generally choose to digest and deal with the existing fleet capacity. However, with the improvement of ship owners’ business, and the enhancement of fi nancing capacity, there is the possibility of continuing to order super large container ships.HYUNDAI, the famous shipping company in Korea has recently made clear that it will order a batch of 22000TEU super large container ships in 2018, so as to enhance its competitiveness in the global shipping industry. In terms of branch type container ship, the active Asian regional trade activity will support the rapid growth of container ship trade volume on Asian regional container trade routes,at the same time, the scale of the order of the global branch type container ships in the early stage is limited,the relationship between supply and demand is better than other ships, and the proportion of old ship is relatively high, the space for updating is larger. It is expected that in 2018, the volume of delivery of new ships in the global container ship market is about 160.

The trend of forming alliance or merger will continue

Judging from the perspective of the future development trend of container shipping market, the integration trend of the global container shipping market will continue, and the market concentration will further improve. Moodie,the famous consultancy body of the world also believes that with the major liner companies enhancing market share, improving operational efficiency and coping with the increasingly fierce competition in the industry,the integration of global container shipping market in 2018,whether in the form of alliances or in the form of mergers and acquisitions, will continue. And for some liner companies that do not participate in the alliance will be at a disadvantage when competing in the industry because it is dif fi cult to achieve the cost advantage of the alliance.Under such circumstances, the global container shipping market will make the strong become stronger and the weak the weaker, it will be hard for liner companies of smaller scale and poor market competitiveness to escape from the fate of being eliminated.