11 Largest Container Shipping Companies in the World

11 largest container shipping companies in the world account for a majority of the container traffic moving around the world’s major ocean routes. Today almost 90% of the cargo is transported by containers worldwide. Container ships are like cargo ships that carry goods and materials from one port to another. The container shipping business has revolutionized the cargo movements by sharply reducing shipping expenses and decreasing shipping time.

You might also like to see which are the 10 largest oil tanker shipping companies in the world. Just as oil tankers come in a variety of sizes, container ships also come in seven different sizes. These include small feeder, feeder, feedermax, Panamax, Post-Panamax, New Panamax and ultra-large. Container ship capacity is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Container ships under 3,000 TEU are generally called feeders, while container ships with capacity more than 14,500 TEU are known as ultra-large container vessels. A container ship may be geared with cranes for handling its cargo.

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These container shipping companies are a critical link in the global supply chain of manufactured goods. Globalization and containerization had led to a surge in the number of large container shipping companies in the world. However, the container shipping business is facing slow growth since the 2008-09 financial crisis. This has resulted in a wave of consolidation amongst major container lines. Some of the container shipping companies have also formed alliances to improve efficiency and reduce costs. We have listed below the 11 largest container shipping companies in the world based on the data from Wikipedia which ranked these companies based on their container capacities.