Maritime 2026 Annual Review & Outlook

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Drewry estimates container carrier losses will reach $ 10 billion in 2026. Fotokon / Shutterstock. com

By Vel Intoria

Supply-demand imbalance puts ocean carriers on course for heavy losses

By Greg Knowler

The big picture: A growing imbalance between supply and demand will bring the container shipping industry’ s five-year profitability voyage to an end in 2026. With vessel capacity outstripping volumes on the major trade lanes, analysts expect carriers to fall into the red as early as the first quarter, culminating in a multi-billiondollar combined loss for the full year.

A look back: The US tariff mayhem from the Trump administration severely disrupted container shipping on the trans-Pacific, particularly between the US and China. A tit-for-tat, stop-and-go escalation of the trade war between Washington and Beijing led to significant frontloading of US imports and, in turn, a harsher-than-usual slowdown in the final months of 2025. On the Asia – Europe trade lane, a different kind of frontloading caused peak season to begin in May, rather than June. Shippers concerned about longer transit times around southern Africa— in place since the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea began in 2023— moved their imports a month earlier than normal to make sure goods made it on the shelves in time for summer, and strong demand continued through July before beginning to slide in September. Even with a fourth-quarter volume downturn, carriers were on pace to report a combined $ 20 billion profit in 2025, according to Drewry Shipping Consultants.

A look ahead: With that depressed demand expected to linger into 2026, Drewry is forecasting a $ 10 billion container shipping industry loss for the year. Typically, volumes on the east-west trades out of Asia swell in January as shippers look to restock prior to Lunar New Year celebrations, during which factories in China slow or halt production for two weeks. This year, Asia – Europe forwarders are reporting relatively solid bookings for the month, but trans-Pacific forwarders are skeptical they will see any appreciable growth. The lackluster pre- Lunar New Year demand bodes poorly for the rest of the year, and maritime analysts expect the growing supplydemand imbalance to undermine efforts to raise rates. Global fleet capacity will grow 2.2 % to 33.7 million TEUs in 2026, according to Drewry, while global container volumes will rise between 2.5 % and 3.5 %, according to a forecast from shipowner association Bimco. But the imbalance will be far more apparent on the trans-Pacific. With US retailers keeping inventories lean amid uncertain consumer sentiment and ever-changing tariff policy, Moody’ s Ratings forecasts US container volumes will be flat to down 2 % compared with 2025.

Lackluster pre-Lunar New Year demand bodes poorly for the rest of the year.

The next inflection: The diversion of container ships away from the Suez Canal mitigated what would have been a significant capacity overhang over the past three years. But analysts warn that if carriers return to the much faster Suez transits— the likelihood of which increases the longer the Israel-Hamas ceasefire holds— the resulting vessel bunching at ports in Europe will likewise tie up a significant amount of capacity. Those bottlenecks could take months to clear, putting upward pressure on rates and giving carriers some relief from an otherwise bleak earnings outlook.

email: greg. knowler @ spglobal. com

18 Journal of Commerce | January 5, 2026 www. joc. com