2025 Ocean Carrier Trends: Mixed signals prevail in 2025

As 2025 begins, the logistics market presents a complex mix of challenges and opportunities, with factors like geopolitical shifts, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), and evolving global trade patterns reshaping the landscape. For shippers, these trends demand vigilance and adaptability.

Among the various logistics modes, the ocean cargo sector appears poised for the greatest transformation. After a dynamic 2024 marked by record-high U.S.-bound import volumes, the industry now faces realignment in carrier alliances, shifting service levels, and volatile rates—all of which will shape the strategies of shippers and carriers alike in the year ahead.

Philip Damas, managing director and head of Drewry Supply Chain Advisors, explains that 2024 was far from a dull year for the ocean cargo market.

“It was another year of inflation in container freight rates, and another year of chronic disruptions in the movement and fluidity of ships and cargoes, with those two things being related,” says Damas. “We saw contract rates continue to be high, both in the spot market and the contract market.”

Unlike prior years, in which that was a byproduct of the pandemic, Damas says that it largely stemmed from the Red Sea and Suez Canal diversions, which absorb a huge amount of capacity. Heading into 2024, he says there were expectations of some overcapacity, which plagued the market for years, but was negated by the diversions.

“The question now is when will overcapacity return and will the market rebalance again?” says Damas. “Our view for 2025 is that there will continue to be more disruptions of different types, with the industry consensus being that the Suez Canal will not resume fluid operations in 2025.”

Did someone say tariffs?

One potential, or perhaps even likely, market disruption in 2025 could be the implementation of new and also increased tariffs.

While not leaning one way or the other in supporting tariffs, Damas says that the underlying theme is that when new tariffs are announced, everybody ships as much as they can to avoid paying them—but that does not mean it comes without a cost.

“It creates more volatility and more bottlenecks while also leading to price increases,” says Damas. “It’s one of a number of things we think will happen this year, which will disrupt the market again and effectively stop what would have been a reduction in rates.”

In his assessment of the ocean cargo market, Jon Monroe, president and founder of Jon Monroe Consulting, says that at the outset of 2025, all is relatively calm, for the most part, noting that there are not any new geopolitical issues, save for the existing challenges, with other notable events being the full return of operations at the Panama Canal.

The possibility of an East and Gulf Coast ports dockworker strike was squelched last month, with the International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) coming to terms on a tentative agreement.

From a service perspective, Monroe says that it’s likely ocean carriers will increase their number of blank sailings early in 2025. While that is a concern, he says that it may not have a major impact on beneficial cargo owners (BCO).

The reason for that, Monroe observes, is that many BCOs shipped their cargo earlier in advance of the election and potential tariffs as well as the East and Gulf Coast port labor situation, which, at several U.S. ports, drove record-setting monthly volumes. “A lot of that was from front-loading, as people were not going to wait to ship until the last minute,” he adds.

From his perspective, Ben Hackett, founder of maritime consultancy Hackett Associates, says that in looking at cargo volumes, they’re weakened globally, with Europe still in a low-growth environment, with volume growth pegged in the 0.5% to 1% range, as demand has slowed down.

As for North America, Hackett says that the forecast is far more positive and continues to be upwardly revised, driven by strong import numbers. That was evidenced by his firm’s 13.3% estimated increase in North American imports, from 2023 to 2024 [final numbers
had not been released as of press time], which would mark one of the highest annual gains going back to the conclusion of the great recession.

Hackett adds that the second half of 2024 was below the first half of 2024, in terms of the growth rate. However, for the second half alone, he estimates that it topped the second half of 2023 by 12%. For 2025, he says estimates call for the first half of the year to be down 2% annually.

Drewry’s Damas observes that the growth rate for wages minus inflation is expected to come in at around a 3% increase in 2025, with Drewry’s market research pointing to a 6% annual gain in 2025 North American-bound imports due to the fact that people have more disposable income.

“North America is one of the highest growing markets in the world,” adds Damas. “Here in Europe, we’re quite envious of the boom in U.S. ocean volumes. For example, if you talk to people in trucking, they’re really struggling, but international container volumes are solid, with so much volume having come in and ocean transportation doing very well.”

The importance of alliances

A key component of ocean cargo service is related to various carrier alliances. In addressing the impact of these alliances on BCOs, Monroe views it as a mixed bag.

What’s more, Monroe says that 2025 brings not only a shift in alliances, but also different philosophies on how to run them from a business perspective.

“There is the Gemini Cooperation [alliance], which is Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd coming together; a good thing in that it’s culturally a fit to Northern European carriers and pretty disciplined,” explains Monroe. “I think it could eventually be one single carrier—they have a similar capacity to MSC combined. They’re counting on service reliability factors of 90%-plus reliability. MSC doesn’t really want somebody to come up with 90% reliability, because it could eliminate the disruption factor, which is where the carriers make money, and I think that’s how it has always gone.”

The other side of that, according to Monroe, is that from Gemini’s point of view, it can really start pulling vessels out from a hub-and-spoke system without creating a major disruption, taking them the complete opposite direction of what it publicizes, with its 90%-plus reliability.

“I think those are the two issues there are,” says Monroe. “MSC would like to say it’s faster and more direct, but what difference does it make if a vessel doesn’t arrive on time?”

Hackett made the point that while MSC is on its own, it’s still slot-sharing with a few friendly liners it works with, like ZIM Line, as an example.

This leads to more point-to-point services, or what Hackett called “hubbing,” and more feeder services coming, meaning that the number of ports being serviced will continue to be the same and could go up a bit, while coming with a caveat.

“It will be due to a greater use of trans-shipment activity, but, of course, the downside to that is that shippers don’t like trans-shipping because they don’t see 100% reliability in it, although they don’t really have a choice,” adds Hackett. “You’re also seeing MSC and Hapag-Lloyd shifting east to more hubs and building up more hub points. That’s not just because of the Red Sea situation. I think the trend was going in that direction anyway. It’s a cheaper way of operating. You can use your big ships to move the large volumes of cargo and then use small ships to distribute it around—something we expect to continue.”

Hackett likens it to the Amazon structure, in that Amazon will build a huge warehouse and ship by space—via small transport—to final destinations.