While the top 10 lines at the moment look relatively stable, smaller regional lines that focus on just the Pacific trades for example, would be the next likely candidates for any future consolidation.
“Those that cannot scale up anymore could join the bigger lines,” said ICBC Financial Leasing shipping ed Bill Guo at the TPM Asia Conference.
He gave the example of the acquisition of Orient Overseas Container Lines by Cosco as an example, suggesting that post-consolidation, the new entitiy may employ some slightly different market strategies.
“The smaller lines can focus only on some specific trade lanes to survive the tough competition against the global liners,” Guo suggested.
Having said that, Guo expressed optimism that the outlook for the next six months would be positive.
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