UASC among top 20 container shipping firms in the world

United Arab Shipping Company (UASC), the region's largest container shipping company, has increased its global market share and now features among the world's top 20 container shipping lines, according to figures from AXS-Alphaliner.

The company is also the only Gulf-owned container line to feature among the world's top 30 container shipping lines.

UASC's current global market share stands at 1.2 per cent with a total capacity of 157,107 TEUs (twenty feet equivalent units).

APM-Maersk remains the world's largest container shipping line, with a global market share of 15.3 per cent and the company's capacity crossed the 2 million TEU mark last year to reach 2,028,048 TEUs.

Despite the slowdown in demand, UASC is determined to keep growing to increase its global market share, according to officials.

"We are still a growing company with long-term ambitions. That it why we are still hiring people at a time when most companies are downsizing," UASC President and CEO, Ken Bloch Soerensen told Emirates Business recently.

The company has said it plans to lay up about three vessels of 2000 TEU capacity this year in a move to improve utilisation and revive freight rates that collapsed in the second half of last year to their lowest level in 30 years.

UASC currently operates 44 ships, 27 of which are owned by the company and the rest are chartered. The company was established in July 1976; jointly by six shareholding Gulf states of the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi.

Last year, the company announced the GCC's largest single new building contract for nine 13,100 TEUs ships (A13) with Samsung Heavy Industries at a value of over $1.5bn. The first of the nine sisters will be delivered to UASC in October of 2010, and the rest will follow in short order, with the last vessel being delivered in the 4th Quarter of 2011.

The AXS-Alphaliner TOP 100 provides a constantly updated ranking of the 100 largest container/liner operators as well as global capacity figures taking into account the fleets of virtually all container operators worldwide.

Alphaliner has computed it on a daily basis since 1996 and it has become a benchmark for the liner shipping industry. It allows to follow the progression of the fleet of each operator as well as the evolution of their global market shares.

APM-Maersk has doubled its fleet since it passed the one million TEU mark in December 2004 and although it has been at the top for a long time, its share of the global market has fluctuated as more companies join the industry and new vessels get introduced.

"With a declared orderbook reaching only 340,000 TEUs (end-April 2008), APM-Maersk is not in a position to maintain its market share over 16 per cent in the medium term (2009-2011), unless a vigorous chartering activity helps to keep the pace at which rivals MSC and CMA CGM are to grow, with unrivalled orderbooks hovering around the 600,000 TEU figure for each of them," said AXS-Alphaliner.

Mediterranean Shipping Company comes second with a global market share of 11.7 per cent and capacity of 1,547,739 TEUs, while CMA CGM Group comes third with a market share of 7.3 per cent and a capacity of 963,803 TEUs. Emirates Shipping Line is ranked 41st among the world's top 50 container lines.

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