Container cargo movements rebounded vigorously is 2010, as the container shipping market recovered in an unexpectedly fasttime. Global container trade in 2010 is calculated to have grown by 12.3 per cent to 139.80 million TEUs, which is 2.3 per cent higher than the record of 2008, according to a Clarkson's report. For many shipping lines, 2010 was a giant comeback year after suffering their worst losses in history in 2009.
Major Global container Shipping operators, such as Zim, CSAV, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM all returned to the black last year and managed to increase their market share after teetering dangerously close to bankruptcy in 2009, according to Alphaliner. CMA CGM is now in a very strong position, and it has also managed to drastically increase its market share in terms of deployed tonnage from 4.9 per cent of the global fleet in 2005 to 8.2 per cent today.
MSC, the world's second largest carrier, has increased its share from 8.2 per cent to 12.6 per cent during the same time period. In relative terms, the biggest mover in the market has been CSAV, which increased its fleet by 74 per cent in just 12 months from 333,000 TEUs to 579,000 TEUs now. Eighteen out of the 20 carriers studied by Alphaliner raised their capacity last year. Only two Japanese ocean lines showed a decline in capacity, indicating that Japanese carriers were still conservative about the growth of global cargo demand and worried about overcapacity.
