Witness History! MSC Will Become the World's First Shipping Company with a Capacity of 5 Million TEUs

According to the latest news, Alphaliner, a shipping consulting agency, said yesterday that MSC will become the world's first shipping company with a shipping capacity of 5 million TEUs as soon as the end of this month.

MSC overtook Maersk as the world's largest container carrier 16 months ago. In order to achieve rapid growth in capacity, they keep ongoing second-hand vessel purchases and newbuilding orders.

MSC now doubles its fleet size in just eight and a half years. As of May 16, MSC's fleet consisted of 753 vessels with a combined capacity of 4,956,720 TEUs, while the new buildings MSC Michel Cappelini and MSC Gemma, which will be delivered from China's Yangzijiang Shipyard and China Shipbuilding CSSC respectively at the end of this month, at that time, it will break through 5 million TEUs mark.

According to the current newbuilding orders for 127 ships with a total capacity of 1.66 million TEUs, it will only take more than a year for MSC to break the record of 6 million TEUs. Alphaliner estimates that its fleet size could reach 6 million TEUs by mid-2024, but the exact timing depends on actual vessel acquisitions and sales.

The 2M alliance will be officially disbanded in early 2025. With the above new shipbuilding orders, MSC is generally considered to have the ability to independently operate routes outside the global shipping alliance. However, the size of the capacity does not represent the share of market cargo, MSC's next challenge will be to fill its huge capacity with profitable cargo.