Ocean Carrier Orderbook: Top Carriers and Capacity - Desteia

Ocean Carrier Orderbook: Top Carriers and Capacity

We looked at existing data from the world orderbook of vessels from ocean carriers to give a better idea of future trends in logistics.

Jose Luis Sabau

December 2, 2024

As we head into 2025, and prepare for a new period of international operations, companies should look into the global orderbook as a key guide to future trends. Oftentimes, we focus too much on imminent disruptions or general trends of logistics operators. However, as we show in this piece, the global orderbook is a key metric for future performance—more so in an industry known to be as unpredictable as logistics.

That is why this week, we wanted to focus on the global orderbook of vessels and provide an initial set of insights companies can use to chose the best carriers and routes for their supply chains.

But let’s start with the basics. What is the global orderbook and why does it matter? In simple terms, the global orderbook refers to the number of vessels a company has acquired from ship manufacturers but has yet to receive them. Rather, it is the vessels—and capacity of those vessels—a carrier is set to add to their fleet in the near future.

As we’ve shown previously in our research, the performance of ocean carriers is extremely volatile in nature. One needs only to look at the rankings in terms of carrier reliability over the last eight years to notice this trend. Hapag Lloyd recently jumped from being the tenth most reliable carrier to the most reliable in the world. Meanwhile MSC fell from being the third most reliable to being the sixth. Given this high volatility, any hint as to which carriers are likely to outperform their competitors in the future could be crucial as companies make plans for their supply chains in 2025.

Ranking of Top Ocean Carriers by Reliability Performance (2017-2024)

A bump chart showing the ranking of top ocean carriers by reliability performance between 2017 and 2024.

(14)(12)(10)(8)(6)(4)(2)0
Hamburg Süd
PIL
Wan Hai
HMM
CMA CGM
ZIM
Maersk
OOCL
COSCO
Yang Ming
Evergreen
ONE
MSC
Hapag-Lloyd

Chart: Auba Research Source: Sea Intelligence
Get the data Created with: Datawrapper

The global orderbook provides at least an initial semblance of what the near future could look like in terms of performance for ocean carriers. It does so by showing which companies are actively investing in their fleets and, in turn, will have more capacity to offer clients. In case of an emergency, these additional vessels could be used to maintain trade routes or redirect shipments to ensure they arrive on time. Simply put, companies investing more heavily on their fleets are likely better able to respond to disruptions and provide an overall better service to clients.

Now, using official figures from Alphaliner, we are able to visualize at least a snapshot of what the global orderbook looks as of today. In the graph below, we plotted the share of the total TEUs in the current global orderbook that belongs to each major carrier. It is worth noting that, as of the time of writing, adding all orders in the global orderbook will result in an increased capacity to the international maritime fleet of roughly 7.3M TEUs—that is equivalent to increasing global shipping capacity by 19.5%.

Share of the Global Order Book (December 2024)

(based in TEUs ordered)
A pie chart showing the share of the global orderbook that corresponds to each ocean carrier.

MSC(26.06%)
CMA CGM(15.87%)
COSCO(12.35%)
Other(9.04%)
PIL (3.32%)
Wan Hai Lines(4.18%)
Hapag-Lloyd(6.32%)
Maersk(6.43%)
ONE(8.19%)
Evergreen(8.25%)

Source: Alphaliner
Get the data Created with: Datawrapper

Now, the fact that MSC, CMA CGM, and COSCO monopolize a large share of the global orderbook, doesn’t mean they are the carriers that stand to gain the most from such investments. All three carriers already have massive fleets which, together, account for over 43% of all container capacity in the world. So, to drastically increase their capabilities, they require massive investments.

To find out which companies stand to gain the most from their current investments, we calculated the estimated percentage change in their TEU capacities once they receive all deliveries scheduled in their orderbooks. The results are displayed in the graph below.

TEU Capacity Increase by Carrier Expected from Orderbook (2024)

A bar graph showing the expected TEU capacity increase by ocean carrier from orders currently in the global orderbook.

RCL (Regional Container L.) 44.5%
PIL (Pacific Int. Line) 39.9%
Wan Hai Lines 37.2%
TS Lines 36.7%
X-Press Feeders Group 35.2%
Emirates Shipping Line 34.7%
Turkon Line 33.8%
Arkas Line / EMES 31.5%
Seaboard Marine 30.0%
Evergreen Line 26.1%
Crowley Liner Services 25.8%
Chun Kyung (CK Line) 25.1%
Mediterranean Shipping Co 23.6%
CMA CGM Group 23.6%
ONE (Ocean Network Express) 23.6%
Interasia Line 22.2%
COSCO Group 21.7%
KMTC 17.8%
Hapag-Lloyd 16.7%
Matson 13.6%
Samskip 11.9%
Zhonggu Logistics Corp. 11.7%
MTT Shipping 9.9%
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. 9.9%
HMM Co Ltd 9.7%
Maersk 9.7%
Ningbo Ocean Shipping Co 9.6%
Samudera 7.5%
SITC 6.6%
Sidra Line 6.5%
Grimaldi (Napoli) 6.5%
Meratus 5.5%
UniFeeder 4.7%
Zim 2.6%
Namsung Shipping 2.4%
Sea Lead Shipping 0.9%

Source: Alphaliner
Get the data Created with: Datawrapper

Despite what one could infer from these figures, we most highlight that the world isn’t actually increasing its capabilities in a drastic manner. In the graph below, we use UNCTDA data to plot the size of global orders as a share of existing capacity in the commercial fleet from 2005 to 2024. As the figure shows, over the last five years, the overall share of orders has stabilized around 10% which, in turn, represents a steep fall from earlier in the millennium before the 2008 financial crisis.

Global Ship Capacity Ordered per Month (Jan 2005-July 2024)

(as a percentage of total dead weight capacity in the global shipping fleet)
A line graph showing global ship capacity ordered as a percentage of total dead weight capacity in the global shipping fleet between January 2005 and July 2024.

0510152025303540455055%
Value

Source: UNCTDA
Get the data Created with: Datawrapper

Moreover, there are actually a number of meaningful shifts in factors around the global orderbook that display further trends companies should consider. In the figure below, we replicate further UNCTDA data that accounts for global demolitions of vessels, deliveries of orders, new contracts signed, and the global charter rate—meaning, a metric of how frequently carriers hire vessels from other companies to deliver an order.

In the last five years, there have been at least three noticeable trends. First, demolitions of vessels, which used to happen in periodic cycles, have all but stopped, meaning that a considerable share of vessels currently at sea are currently out of date—another reason why it is important to look at which companies are ordering vessels for future use. Second, new contracts are actually decreasing since 2022, signaling that companies are not ordering nearly as much as expected and a considerable share of the global orderbook comes from earlier orders, likely inspired by a boost in ocean trade during the COVID-19 pandemic—interestingly, overall deliveries are also increasing, suggesting the world is starting to get a share of the global orderbook delivered. Finally, since 2021, charter rates have been at their highest point since 2005, signaling that the global ocean market is still hot and companies still struggle to find carriers that can reliably deliver their goods.

Charter Rates, Demolitions, Deliveries, and New Contracts for Ocean Carriers (1998-2024)

A line graph showing the charter rate, demolitions, deliveries, and new contracts for ocean carriers between 1998 and 2024.

050100150200250300350400450500
Demolitions
New contracts
Deliveries
Charter rate

Source: UNCTDA
Get the data Created with: Datawrapper

All this to say that the global orderbook remains a crucial tool for companies to consider as they plan their supply chains for 2025. Through it, operators can make better guesses to carrier performance given the high variance these metrics tend to have.