Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has become the world's first container shipping line to operate a fleet of 1,000 vessels, according to data from analysts Alphaliner and Linerlytica. This milestone places the Geneva-based company in an unprecedented position in the history of container shipping, with a total capacity of around 7.3 million TEUs.
According to Alphaliner, MSC's fleet reached the thousand-ship mark with the incorporation via charter of the Admiral Neptune, a container ship of 868 TEUs that, according to AIS data, is currently docked in the Port of Antwerp and is expected to join the Antwerp-Grangemouth service. Linerlytica, for its part, notes the delivery of the MSC Migsan, an 11,480 TEU vessel from the Chinese shipyard Zhoushan Changhong, as the milestone that allowed crossing that barrier.
The fleet of 1,000 vessels comprises dedicated container ships, as well as multipurpose vessels suitable for containerized cargo, and also includes the fleets of affiliated companies such as WEC Lines, Log-in-Logistics, and Medlog. The capacity operated by MSC is approximately 57% higher than that of its closest competitor, Maersk, which operates 736 ships. The size of the Swiss fleet is practically equivalent to the combined capacity of Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express (ONE), Evergreen Marine, and HMM.
MSC's growth has been especially intense since 2020, coinciding with one of the most expansive phases of the container shipping market. Analysts in the sector point out that the company has fundamentally based its expansion on organic growth, through the hiring of new builds and the chartering of vessels, instead of resorting to large corporate acquisitions.
