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Container Lines Shift Strategy, Owned Vessels Now Dominate Global Fleets

The world's 12 largest container carriers have dramatically restructured their fleet composition, with owned vessels now representing 63% of their combined capacity, up from 43% in January 2020. The shift accelerated after March 2025, with the chartered vessel ratio declining 4 percentage points annually, compared to a 2.5 percentage point decline between January 2020 and March 2025. MSC, HMM and Wan Hai led the transition, with Wan Hai eliminating chartered tonnage entirely. MSC, CMA CGM, Evergreen and PIL roughly halved charter exposure. Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk, Cosco and Zim made only minimal adjustments. The structural change reflects carriers' strategy to secure capacity and reduce reliance on the charter market.