French owned CMA CGM could be set to take over from Maersk Line as the world’s second largest carrier in the next couple of years due to its large order book of vessels.
According to The Loadstar, the carrier has a massive 122 container ships on order with a combined capacity of 1.24 million teu. This is in addition to its current fleet of 625 vessels totalling 3.5m teu, which places it behind Maersk’s capacity of 4.1m teu.
Maersk were able to boast the accolade of being the world’s largest carrier until recent years, but apparently the Danish company only have 33 ships on order for 0.4m teu capacity and already trail MSC by nearly one million teu.
Of course, some of the incoming vessels will replace older ships and not all of them will add capacity, but as things stand Maersk will certainly be challenged by CMA CGM for second spot by the time it splits from the 2M Alliance in 2025.
In addition to CMA CGM’s order book, the Ocean Alliance are set to grow capacity considerably in the next couple of years. Alliance members Cosco and Evergreen both have over 800,00 teu capacity coming in according to their current vessel order books.
It’s difficult to understand why the extra capacity is needed when you consider the low demand in major markets, but numerous carriers must be optimistic about the global economic outlook and we’re happy to take that as a positive sign.
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