Gemini, Premier Alliance, and MSC have all announced their 2025 networks. Ocean Alliance has not yet announced a ‘2025’ network, and given that the alliance structure continues unchanged, it is reasonable to assume only minor network changes for them. For the rest, Sea-Intelligence did an extensive overview of the new networks in issue 682 of the Sunday Spotlight.
Figure 1 shows the number of distinct port-pairs offered by each alliance (MSC is also referred to as ‘alliance’ for semantic practicalities) on both Asia-North America and Asia-Europe. ‘Distinct’ means that one port-pair, even if it is offered on multiple services, is counted only once.
On Asia-Europe, MSC clearly will be offering the most direct port-port combinations, followed by Ocean Alliance, and Premier Alliance. On Asia-North America, MSC and Ocean Alliance both offer the same level of direct connectivity, however Ocean Alliance has a higher call frequency on the port-pairs they offer.
From a shipper perspective, Asia-Europe has some very different service concepts to choose from, with MSC offering 3½ times more direct connections than Gemini. On Asia-North America, there is a high level of competitive pressure from MSC and Ocean Alliance in offering direct connections, while Gemini is following an entirely different strategy.
Sea-Intelligence also calculated the level of competitiveness across the ports being serviced directly. On both trades, half of the direct port-pairs are offered by a single alliance which gives that alliance a unique product. Conversely, 5%-14% of the direct port-pairs are offered by all four alliances, which will result in strong competitive pressure on those port-pairs.
