International Maritime the 15 %, 16 %( volume share) that we’ ve always aspired to,” Habben Jansen told reporters. MSC holds the largest market share on the trade at 21 %.

Capacity play

When completed, the acquisition of Zim, the 10thlargest container line by capacity, will boost Hapag-Lloyd’ s fleet to more than 400 vessels, with a slot capacity of over 3 million TEUs, and its annual transport volumes to more than 18 million TEUs.

The deal underscores the obstacles to expansion in the current era. Shipyards are full, charter rates remain high, and the top carriers control a greater share of the second-hand market, limiting carriers’ ability to expand organically. Carriers remain flush with cash following a string of profitable years that began with the pandemic, meaning the financial duress that triggered many prior mergers is not present currently.

Yet the advantages stemming from scale are undeniable. Despite the potential for three to four years of overcapacity that took a noticeable toll on freight rates and carrier profits in the second half of 2025, the ability of carriers to influence capacity and benefit from external capacity shocks, many believe, leaves them in a more favorable long-term position compared to the 30 years before COVID.

“ Disruption can be highly profitable for carriers.”

“ A key lesson learned over the last five years is that disruption can be highly profitable for carriers,” maritime industry analyst and Journal of Commerce contributor John McCown wrote in January.

The top five carriers control 64.5 % of global capacity while the top 10 control 84.1 %, according to Alphaliner. As recently as 2013, the top 10 lines controlled just over 60 % while in 1996 the top 10 carriers controlled 48 %, analyst Lars Jensen wrote in“ Liner Shipping 2025.”

Hapag-Lloyd has long been a major player in the consolidation trend. In 2005, it acquired Canadian carrier CP Ships which itself had absorbed Mexican carrier TMM. In 2014, Hapag-Lloyd acquired Chile-based CSAV, and in 2017 it acquired United Arab Shipping Co. Hapag-Lloyd acquired Africa carrier NileDutch and Deutsche Afrika- Linien( DAL) in 2021 and in 2022, respectively.

In structuring the Zim sale to satisfy Israel government security concerns by allowing a private equity firm to keep local assets and some vessels, leaving Hapag-Lloyd with international operations, the deal harks back to the sale of APL to Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines in the 1990s. The US government required APL’ s US-flag ships to be operated by an American vessel operations entity.

email: greg. knowler @ spglobal. com email: mark. szakonyi @ spglobal. com

www. joc. com

Scrapping strategy looms large amid growing oversupply

By Greg Knowler

The urgent need to increase the virtually non-existent scrapping of old container ships as new vessels flood online is a key challenge for the industry as it navigates an increasingly oversupplied market, according to carriers and analysts.

Pre-tax quarterly losses have already appeared on the balance sheets of Maersk, its first in two years; and Ocean Network Express, its first quarterly loss since the second quarter of 2018; with Hapag-Lloyd and HMM both reporting steep declines in fourth-quarter profitability.

Downward pressure on rates is set to continue with just over 1 million TEUs of capacity via ships above 10,000 TEUs scheduled to be delivered this year. That will be followed by 2.3 million TEUs of capacity in 2027 and 3.4 million TEUs in 2028, according to Sea-web, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global.

There is no sign of carriers pausing ship orders, either. A record 4.8 million TEUs of new ship capacity was ordered in 2025 and that momentum has carried into 2026 with another 290,000 TEUs ordered in January, according to maritime consultancy Drewry.

Even as the capacity overhang is pushed further out, scrapping remains at negligible levels. Drewry said in its container insight that 6,000 TEUs of capacity was scrapped in 2025, while Alphaliner puts the number slightly higher at 8,172 TEUs, calling it the lowest number in 20 years, according to their data.

Shipping association Bimco estimated late last year that the share of ships 20 years old or older in the global fleet had increased from 16 % at the beginning of 2020 to around 24 %, putting the recycling overhang at 500 ships with a combined capacity of 1.8 million TEUs.

Challenge to profitability

In the financial results announced so far by ocean carriers, overcapacity was highlighted as a significant challenge to profitability.

The most optimistic prediction is for global volumes to grow 4 % this year, but with the steady influx of new ships and a return of some services to the Suez Canal, Maersk is expecting overcapacity in 2026 to be as high as 8 %.

The severe impact of overcapacity on the market and a reluctance of carriers to scrap older vessels was outlined in Maersk’ s 2026 profitability forecast announced last week. Faced with a return to the Suez and new industry capacity

March 2, 2026 | Journal of Commerce 33