Container Shipping Market Outlook for H2 2025

MSI Expert Analyses Container Shipping Market Outlook for H2 2025: Facing Pressure from US Tariffs and Growing Fleet Oversupply

container-ship-at-port

In this five-part mid-year series, we review the first six months of the year and look ahead to the rest of 2025 with experts from Maritime Strategies International (MSI).

In this second part of the Seatrade Maritime podcast, we spoke to Daniel Richards from MSI about developments in the container shipping market and the outlook for the rest of the year.

Container Shipping Market for H1 2025

Richards notes that the container market has entered 2025 with two major uncertainties, and for an analyst who specializes in the sector, this is never a dull moment. Those two uncertainties – the tariffs proposed by US President Trump and when carriers can return to transiting the Red Sea and Suez Canal, are all but certain to see fleet expansion continue.

“In practice, what's happened is that the tariff situation has been incredibly volatile. There's been no real change to the status quo in the Red Sea, and fleet growth has been elevated, as expected,” he explained.

As for what this means for the market in the first half of the year – “In many respects it's actually being more stable and a less volatile year than 2024 was.”

Breaking the market into two parts – the Trans-Pacific trade and all other trades, Richards sees “been more of a return to normality in terms of seasonal trends in that the markets” in the rest of the market.

Looking at the trade lanes to Europe, as well as some trade lanes to the Middle East and Latin America, there has been a normal seasonal pattern of a weak market from January to May, then increased port congestion in Europe in June and rates starting to rise.

“So, while there's been a lot of macroeconomic geopolitical volatility, a lot of individual container trades have actually performed as you would normally expect them to from a seasonal perspective, with the exception of the US where it’s been more of a roller coaster, in relation to the timing of Trump's tariff announcements,” he explained.

Container rates in Q1 2025 were down 5% compared to Q4 2024, and up 7% compared to the same period in Q1 2024. The Q2 2025 numbers are expected to show a fairly stable picture compared to Q1, or maybe a little lower. “Spot markets have picked up as we get into peak season, but it is overall still a relatively subdued market and you can begin to see the fact that oversupply is having an impact just beyond the volatility on individual trades.”

Despite the relatively normal early months of the year, Richards cautioned that there is “likelihood that something will come along in the next six months to upturn that statement.”

Trump Tariff Impact on US Lanes

“The tariff situation is certainly going to weigh on the US trades. We've seen US bound freight rates come off quite sharply in the past month or so and all else equal, that seems likely to continue over the second half of this year,” he said.

There is still a lot of uncertainty around the tariffs and whether the rates announced for some countries from August 1 will be implemented from that date or pushed back further pending negotiations. Overall, Richards sees the situation as “less dangerous” than it was immediately after “Liberation Day” in early April, “But it is I think worth taking stock at the fact that average tariffs are going to be much higher than they were at the end of last year.”

So far, the impact of the higher tariffs has not had much of an impact on container trade volumes, which have been up between 4% and 6% year-on-year so far in 2025.

“I think with the US though that trade position is going to deteriorate in the second half of the year.” The extent to which cargo was shipped early in the first half remains unclear. However, MSI expects US container imports to decline year-on-year in the second half of 2025, with the weakness lasting at least another year.

“That's likely to drive rates downwards simply because the fleet keeps growing and liners are beginning to show signs of struggling as to where to put all these large ships as are coming into the fleet,” said Richards.

Red Sea Return Delayed

With no Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea in the first half of 2025, some shipping lines such as CMA CGM had begun to consider returning services to the region. However, the attacks on bulk carriers Magic Seas and Eternity C in July have changed those plans.

"That's clearly now being put on hold indefinitely and there's no real prospect of return for those sailings anytime soon and we'll just have to wait and see about how that, how that plays out. But it's a return to a very dangerous situation in that part of the world and one that doesn't look like it will be resolved in the immediate term."

Supply and demand outlook

Looking at vessel supply, Richards said: “The orderbook in particular remains large. Liner companies have continued to place new orders at a very healthy clip and we're up to around 2 million teu of new orders placed so far this year and that's really meant that the orderbook fleet ratio has remained stuck at just over 30% of the fleet are still very heavily weighted towards larger vessel segments.”

However, there has been a slight increase in orders for smaller sized vessels, which is seen as being due given the age structure of that segment of the fleet.

The diversion of vessels from the Red Sea via the Cape of Good Hope, which looks set to continue, has helped to prop up the market as it seeks uses for the newly launched vessels.

However, on a full-year basis, MSI expects fleet growth to outpace container trade growth. Container trade growth is expected to increase by around 3.5-4%, while the fleet is expected to grow by around 6.5%.

Looking ahead, Richards said they expect container trade growth to weaken next year, driven largely by the US market. “There's also a question of how long China can continue to export its surplus of manufactured goods to external trading partners without those piling up into inventories or inviting retaliatory trade measures from countries apart from the US.”

“The trade outlook as we move into next year is likely to weaken, but the outside of the US is unlikely to be catastrophic,” he predicted.

On the supply side, fleet growth will slow in 2026, before accelerating significantly after 2026 as orders placed over the past 18 months begin to be delivered.

For the remainder of 2025, MSI expects the supply-demand balance to weaken in the second half of the year, which will weigh on the shipping market after the peak season has passed.

Although there will be a slowdown in new ship deliveries in 2026, the cumulative volume of new ships will weigh on the market. “Even if there's no resolution to the Red Sea crisis, it is still an industry facing potential oversupply, and we think we will face actual oversupply in practice,” he concluded.

See more: