Insight Focus
CMA CGM surpasses 4 million TEUs capacity. Shipping alliances control over 61% after February 2025 restructuring. MSC’s independent growth challenges alliance dominance.
CMA CGM Hits Milestone Amid a broader trend of capacity expansion among major shipping lines, CMA CGM has distinguished itself by reaching a major milestone in early July—surpassing 4 million TEUs in operated capacity.
The French ocean carrier firmly holds the third spot in global container shipping rankings, behind Switzerland/Italy’s MSC (6.7 million TEUs) and Denmark’s Maersk (4.6 million TEUs). However, based on current orderbooks, CMA CGM is expected to overtake Maersk in the near future as it takes delivery of several newbuild container vessels.
The current orderbook of CMA CGM consists of 95 container ships with a total capacity of around 1.5 million TEUs. This is the second largest orderbook in the industry behind MSC’s one, which includes 135 vessels for a total of 2.2 million TEUs. That means that MSC is expected to widen its container capacity gap from its competitors in the next months.
The expansion of the French shipping powerhouse, owned by the Saade family, has been achieved through both organic and external growth, according to global shipping consultancy Alphaliner.
A number of important acquisitions, such as French state-owned CGM in 1996, Australian national carrier ANL in 1998, French West African specialist Delmas in 2005 and US carrier American President Line (APL) in 2016, played a key role in the establishment of CMA CGM as one of the main players of the shipping industry.
The Marseille-based carrier, which currently owns and/or charters 685 container ships—representing over 12% of the global market—has quadrupled its capacity over the past 16 years. It reached its first million TEUs of operated capacity in June 2009, doubled to 2 million in 2016, and surpassed 3 million TEUs in 2021.
Source: Alphaliner
Alliance Vs. Independent Carriers
Global container capacity has now exceeded 32.7 million TEUs, with Alphaliner reporting more than 7,350 active container ships. This provides an interesting opportunity to examine the market share of ocean carriers participating in the three major container shipping alliances, compared to those operating independently.
Before diving into the numbers, it’s important to clarify that we will assess each company’s total operated capacity—even though not all of their vessels are deployed within alliance services.
Since our goal is to evaluate the relative strength of alliance-affiliated carriers versus non-alliance operators, the proportion of capacity actually used within alliance networks is not critical for the purpose of this analysis.
Alliances Capture Over 60% Market Share
In February 2025, the global container shipping alliances underwent a major restructuring. The new framework consists of three groups: Gemini Cooperation, a newly formed partnership; Premium Alliance, a restructured group following the departure of Hapag-Lloyd; and Ocean Alliance, which remained unchanged.
The container capacity figures of the alliance-affiliated operators are as follows:
Gemini Cooperation
- Maersk: 4.6 million TEUs – 14.1% market share
- Hapag-Lloyd: 2.45 million TEUs – 7.5% market share
Premium Alliance
- ONE: 2.1 million TEUs – 6.4% market share
- HMM: 930,000 TEUs – 2.9% market share
- Yang Ming: 725,000 TEUs – 2.2% market share
Ocean Alliance
- CMA CGM: 4 million TEUs – 12.3% market share
- COSCO: 3.4 million TEUs – 10.5% market share
- Evergreen: 1.85 million TEUs – 5.7% market share
The above figures indicate that the combined container capacity of carriers participating in one of the three major alliances exceeds 20 million TEUs—representing over 61% of the global market.
This clearly demonstrates the dominant role alliances play in the industry, having the power to potentially transform what is theoretically a highly competitive market with over 100 players into a powerful oligopoly.
MSC Challenges Alliances with Independent Growth
One key development to watch in the container shipping market, both in the near and longer term, is MSC’s standalone strategy. The Swiss-Italian ocean carrier made a pivotal decision to exit the once-dominant 2M Alliance with Maersk, choosing instead to carve its own independent path.
MSC has made massive investments in newbuildings, with a substantial orderbook that is expected not only to secure its position at the top of the global container capacity rankings but also to significantly widen the gap with its competitors. The company now operates over 6.7 million TEUs, commanding more than 20% of global market share—a figure that is expected to rise steadily in the months and years ahead.
On paper, MSC’s rapid growth has positioned it to compete with the major alliances on its own. However, beyond MSC, the landscape for non-alliance carriers is considerably less powerful. The second-largest independent operator is Israel-based ZIM, with a capacity of 760,000 TEUs and a 2.3% market share, followed by Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines (535,000 TEUs, 1.6%), Singapore’s PIL (425,000 TEUs, 1.3%), and carriers such as Sea Lead Shipping, X-Press Feeders, and SITC, each holding approximately 0.6% of the market.
It is telling that, among the top 30 container shipping companies, the combined market share of non-alliance carriers—excluding MSC—is just 11.4%. This underlines the limited influence of the independent box lines and explains why most of them choose to focus on specific regions or specialized cargo types, targeting niche markets rather than attempting to compete directly with the major players on high-traffic, highly competitive global trade lanes.
