Ocean carriers face unprecedented chronic financial problems. Container liner business once worked on a cycle, peak season and slack season can be found in a year term. In the medium to longer term, the boom bust cycle was alive and freight rate was clearly a product of supply-demand fundamentals.
However, in recent years global container freight market no longer even an stable market, and carrier line' s cash flow threatens sustainability management. To provide clear understanding on container liner business, this research reviews container capacity and current cellular fleet, and forecasts containership fleet development so that we can provide outlook supply-demand balance.
When there is an growing necessity to build strategic alliance in between carrier lines, it is necessary to review P3' s influence on the market. The impending arrival of the P3 alliance is causing a form of paralysis in the industry, and after the P3 alliance clarifies its service strategy, the industry will follow suit with more operational agreements.
There is obvious overcapacity in the container liner system but because of the needs to order Ultra Large Container Vessels to save the unit cost and maximize the profit, the next two years at least will see the great delivery of ULCVs. So this report also reviewed each factors how ULCVs helps container lines to save unit cost, and the impact of Ultra Large Container Carrier Vessel deliveries.