The type of container is chosen according to volume, the nature of the goods and the conditions required for transport.
Standard dry (20' / 40'): the most common format for general dry cargo
40-foot High Cube: a taller container, suited to bulky goods
Reefer: a temperature-controlled container for perishable goods and pharmaceutical products
Open Top and Flat Rack: open containers for out-of-gauge cargo
Tank: a tank built into a standardized frame for transporting liquids
Vessel capacity and port volumes are generally expressed in TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units). One TEU corresponds to one 20-foot container. A 40-foot container counts as two TEU.
Ports are the interface between ocean transport and land networks. Their terminals receive, store and handle containers before they leave by ship, road, rail or inland waterway.
Some ports act as transshipment hubs: containers are moved from large container ships onto smaller vessels, called feeders, that serve regional ports. This model lets carriers extend their coverage, but it adds a step and a risk of delay.
In 2025, the world's top 20 ports handled nearly 450 million TEU. Asia dominates the ranking by a wide margin, with 15 ports in the top 20, including nine Chinese ports.
Shanghai keeps first place with more than 55 million TEU, ahead of Singapore and Ningbo-Zhoushan. Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges are the only two European ports in the ranking, while Tangier Med remains the only African port.
Major shipping lines join alliances to pool their vessels and offer more frequencies on the main trade lanes. Since February 2025, the landscape has gone through its first major reshuffle since 2017:
Gemini Cooperation: Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd
MSC: operates its own network
Premier Alliance: ONE, HMM and Yang Ming
Ocean Alliance: CMA CGM, COSCO Shipping, Evergreen and OOCL
A merger between Hapag-Lloyd and ZIM is also under way. If completed, it would create the world's fifth-largest shipping line. Its outcome remains uncertain, however, pending approval from competition authorities.
For a detailed analysis, see our article on the reshuffle and its impact on service supply.
The main container routes connect the major production and consumption basins:
Asia-Europe: connects mainly Chinese and other Asian ports to the Mediterranean and the Northern Range
Transpacific: connects Asia to the West and East coasts of North America
Transatlantic: connects Europe and North America
North-South routes: serve Africa, Latin America, Oceania and the Indian subcontinent
Intra-regional services: distribute flows within Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East
These routes pass through several strategic chokepoints, such as the Suez and Panama canals or the straits of Malacca, Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.
A crisis or navigation restriction can quickly change itineraries, reduce available capacity and increase transit times, costs and carbon emissions.
A blank sailing is the cancellation of a scheduled sailing, or of certain port calls, on a regular service. Carriers may use it to:
adjust capacity to demand
reorganize vessel rotations
absorb accumulated delays
limit the impact of port congestion
adjust supply during a market slowdown
For shippers, these cancellations can reduce the number of available departures, delay a shipment or lead to its transfer to another service. When they multiply, they also concentrate volumes on the remaining sailings and can help support freight rates.
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Track ocean freight indices
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Understand the trends on a trade lane and the factors that influence its evolution
