The Container Shipping Market Quarterly Review is GSF’s contribution to helping shippers better understand the changes and trends in the global container shipping market in the current turbulent times.

GSF has partnered with MDS Transmodal, a leading UK logistics consultancy, to monitor and report trends and developments in the global container shipping market every quarter. MDS Transmodal compile each Review using publicly available data and their own extensive archives and data holdings.

Each Review reports the changes in the eight Key Performance Indicators that measure the behaviour of the container shipping market from the perspective of shippers and cargo owners in international trade:

1. Trade flows and demand for shipping services
2. Container shipping capacity deployed and available
3. Utilisation of available capacity
4. Shipping lines’ average costs and revenues from moving each container
5. The concentration of services amongst carriers as a measure of the market’s openness
6. The connectivity of the main container ports around the world
7. The predictability of services arriving at destination ports
8. The average emissions of carbon dioxide produced by the movement of each container by sea

The Review is published every three months at the beginning of March, June, September and December and issued free of charge to members. A News Release summarising the findings and including a commentary by GSF and MDS Transmodal accompanies each Review.

Prior to publication, the findings of each Review are presented to GSF’s Container Shipping Market Review Panel of global shippers to sense check their findings and gain insight and experiences of market conditions direct from shippers.

The Review is also intended to provide GSF member associations access to high quality data that they can use in their own advocacy work with national governments and competition authorities. MDS Transmodal are able to provide further data and analysis to GSF members by agreement.

Read the latest Container Shipping Market Quarterly Review, covering activity in Q2 2021

Read the MDS Transmodal/GSF joint news release accompanying each Review