2024 is set to be the most profitable year for container shipping companies outside of the COVID windfalls in 2021/22 despite recording the highest level of new containership deliveries in the last 60 years. The healthy earnings is due to the impact of the Red Sea diversions that have absorbed most of the 2.94m teu of new capacity that was delivered in the last 12 months, keeping both the freight and charter market at elevated levels.
Freight rates continue to enjoy a strong run at the end of the year, with Asia-Europe rates holding on to their recent gains while Transpacific rates staged a strong year end rally to recover their earlier losses since October. The timely market boost puts carriers on a stronger footing in their annual contract rate negotiations, with carriers able to secure marginal increases against last year’s contract rates.
Johnson Leung
Containership deliveries hit record high in 2024
A total of 471 containerships for 2.94m teu have been delivered in 2024, setting a new annual delivery record. Only 67 ships for 93,475 teu were deleted so far this year, for a net supply growth rate of 10.1% for the full year. Supply growth will be a lot more muted in the next 2 years at 5.5% and 3.7% respectively for 2025 and 2026 with the pace of new ship deliveries slowing down sharply.
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