An increase of 6.2%! The growth rate of the global consolidation market in 2024 is staggering
According to the latest data from Container Trade Statistics (CTS), the global container shipping market boomed in 2024, growing by a staggering 6.2% year-on-year to reach 183,158,193 TEU. At the same time, TEU nautical demand increased by more than 20% due to the Red Sea crisis.
Many shipping companies and analysts feared a negative market development in 2024, but the reality was quite the opposite. Since the end of 2023, unexpected demand growth combined with the diversion caused by the Red Sea crisis - which absorbed most of the potential excess capacity (around 8-10%) - has also been the main reason for the shift in the supply and demand balance in 2024 and the increase in freight rates, resulting in the third highest performance in the history of the consolidation industry, after 2022 and 2021 during the pandemic.
In other words, this figure of 6.2% will be the benchmark for the growth of the global market in 2024 by which shipping companies and the maritime sector of global freight forwarders must be measured - below this threshold, it means a decline in market share.
According to CTS, global container traffic reached 16 million TEU in December, up 4.5% from November and up 6.6% year-on-year from December 2023.
CTS said, "This means that December was the second highest month after August, which saw a record shipment volume of 16.1 million TEU." December 2024 showed resilience, maintaining strong volumes despite uncertainty in global trade."
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"Going into 2025, detour and potential tariff issues remain. It will be important to see how these factors affect global trade dynamics in the first quarter."
In terms of growth and volume, CTS divides the container market into seven regions, with the highest growth rate of containerized cargo flow from Asia to North America at 12% in 2024. This is followed by shipments from Asia to Latin America, Europe and Oceania.
"The strength in exports is mainly attributable to demand in North, South and Central America," CTS said.
The report notes that "with political shifts in the United States... And new trade policies may emerge, and it will be interesting to monitor the resilience of Far East exports."
