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Two largest ocean liners Maersk and MSC will dissolve their 2M alliance from January 2025 “to pursue their individual strategies”
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The decision means the two companies will cease their vessel-sharing agreement on certain routes
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The scuttling of 2M will come as the liner industry is headed for uncertain times
Global ocean container shipping giants Maersk and MSC announced on January 25 that they are ending their 2M alliance in January 2025 “to pursue their individual strategies.”
Maersk chief executive Vincent Clerc and his MSC counterpart, Søren Toft, jointly announced in a press statement they are dissolving the collaboration that the two leading container carriers launched in 2015.
Since then, markets have changed and the industry is sailing into “uncertain days ahead”, according to container shipping industry observers.
“Discontinuing the 2M alliance paves the way for both companies to continue to pursue their individual strategies,” Clerc and Toft said in the statement.
“We have very much appreciated the partnership and look forward to a continued strong collaboration throughout the remainder of the agreement period. We remain fully committed to delivering on the 2M alliance’s services to customers of MSC and Maersk,” they added.
Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand sees Maersk and MSC ending 2M alliance in the coming year”.
“I would expect the 2M alliance to have its final sailing in the coming year – as both companies officially redefine their separate futures. Amidst the current headwinds in the container shipping market, offering the best product to all mainhaul East-West shippers should be essential,” Sand said in a post on Linkedin.
The deal between the two carriers is a so-called vessel-sharing agreement (VSA) where Maersk and MSC are allowed to use slots aboard each other’s ships on certain routes to optimize operations.
But Shipping Watch said in a report that “Maersk and MSC have in recent years moved in opposite strategic directions”.
“When 2M was established, having major ships was considered crucial. This belief has now been revised by some carriers at a time where the logistics chaos of the pandemic has made companies reorganize their supply chains, spreading out production over more countries as well,” the report said.
Switzerland-based MSC overtook Denmark’s Maersk on January 5, 2022, as the world’s largest container shipping line after taking delivery of several second-hand ships acquired in 2021, intelligence provider Alphaliner said.
The acquisitions enlarged MSC’s capacity to 4.284 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) compared with Maersk’s 4.282 million TEUs. But shipping rates have slid since January last year after climbing to historic highs in the last quarter of 2021.
Maersk, however, should take back the lead in the next two years when the first of its eight methanol-fueled 15,000-TEU vessels being built by Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries is launched in early 2024.
On hindsight, Maersk’s existing orders for 19 large vessels in the past three years look to be ill-timed, as they will start joining the fleet when the industry is sailing into stormy waters coming from slumping freight rates and a likely global economic recession.
“Uncertain days are ahead of us,” said Patrik Berglund, Xeneta chief executive and co-founder, when asked in a recent webinar about the current market state and its lingering effects in 2023.
“The market is in constant flux. There is peak uncertainty at the moment because nobody anticipated what we’ve seen over the last nine or 10 months. The market has fallen off a cliff. Carriers have had record profitability and are now fighting for volumes,” Berglund said.
Today, there are three container shipping alliances comprising the nine largest carriers globally:
- 2M: MSC and Maersk
- Ocean Alliance: Cosco, CMA CGM, Evergreen and OOCL
- THE Alliance: Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, HMM and Yang Ming
“But it’s not only that the market has plummeted; it’s the fact that we see other things on the horizon as well,” Berglund said. If the liners read his message right, it is likely the carriers in the two other alliances will take the cue from 2M.
