Hamburg, December 2021: A global survey published by Container xChange shows that majority of the container logistics industry (75%) is rethinking its logistics strategy in the next year. The survey results indicate that the industry is expecting gloomy times for the container logistics industry. The top challenges for the industry remained finding spot on the vessel and surcharges by carriers. One-way leasing emerged as the most sought-after alternative as compared to getting equipment from the carriers.
Container xChange, world’s leading container trading and leasing tech company released the results of the xChange industry speak survey 2021-22. The survey was released to 800 container logistics players globally including shipping lines, container traders, freight forwarding companies, NVOCCs, shippers and procurement companies. The objective of the survey was to study the industry sentiment, key learnings from the year 2021 and outlook for the year 2022 from the players.
Just when the year 2021 saw a slight recovery from the pandemic, the new variant made a dramatic entry and shook the industry once again. Foreseeing the market in 2022, and what it holds for the logistics business, Christian Roeloffs, Cofounder and CEO, Container xChange, says,
“We foresee that COVID-19 and its new variants will continue to disrupt the port operations and labor capacity as we progress into the year 2022. Persistent unpredictability is warranted. We’ve also started to observe container prices and leasing rates going down. Once prices slide significantly, they risk crashing. If we look at the current demand, we see that the demand for containers hasn’t increased significantly.”
“The current spike in rates is caused by a temporary supply crunch. But with disruptions such as labor union conflicts at US ports easing up, we’ll also see the capacity challenge improving. However, the “return to normal” seems to be coming earlier than many of us first anticipated – and it might be as early as the second half of 2022,” he adds.
Sharing his expectations from the year 2022, Johannes Schlingmeier, Co-founder and CEO, Container xChange said, “2021 was an outstanding year for the shipping industry. The staggering earnings and profits for ocean freight companies have surpassed the combined industry profits made over the whole decade. It was also a year that showed that shippers were “willing” to pay higher prices for shipping.”
He adds, “Now, those earnings and profits will need to prove that this money can be put to good use to improve service levels across the industry. This has to go beyond the traditional levers of investing in more container capacity – but also into landside infrastructure, inland transportation and infrastructure for cross-industry collaboration to build resilience for the industry.”