2021, global shipping demand soared, high freight rates, serious congestion, containers used for shipping has also become a tight cargo, for a time "a box is hard to find". However, two years later, shipping demand reached a low point, freight rates fell back to pre-epidemic levels, and global capacity and containers were severely overrun. According to relevant data, the current global container scale exceeds 50 million TEUs, and the proportion of container surplus exceeds 10%. In major ports around the world, empty containers are piled up like mountains.

, the CEO of Hapraut, the world's fifth largest liner company, has said that although the current container freight rate continues to decline, as the demand for replenishment increases, the order volume of goods and transportation services will pick up again. He expects the recovery to occur in March or June. Because shipping companies find their current fleet is sufficient to cope with the weak shipping industry and want to unload old boxes, container leasing companies said.

in the U.S. port of Los Angeles, empty container accumulation is even more severe. The CAx index shows that in the first 10 weeks of 2023, the CAx value of the 40-foot container in Los Angeles remained above 0.78, reaching 0.83 at the highest. In the first ten weeks of last year, this figure was as high as 0.91. In addition, the northern European port of Antwerp is also above 0.8, which means that the empty container accumulation in European and American consumer ports exceeds the domestic level.

port congestion has gradually eased since last year, and the turnover rate of empty containers has increased, which has also exacerbated the of container surplus. While some shipping lines retained spare container capacity ahead of an expected recovery in demand in the second half of the year, most found they no longer needed the number of containers they had historically, with demand surging in two years.

Olivier Ghesquiere, chief executive of Textainer, said, "I think this is a very basic aspect of our industry. Supply and demand tend to adjust quickly. Keeping additional containers will not hurt the short-and medium-term bottom line of sea carriers, but it also means that the demand for new orders is almost stagnant, which may cause many box factories to close in the first quarter of 2023. We will definitely see no new containers added to the fleet because the delivery time for producing new containers is too short."

has been a "critical growth period" for the container leasing industry in the past two years. Textainer used this period to expand the core ships of its fixed-rate financing long-term lease contracts. Although the lease income of US $0.203 billion in the fourth quarter of Textainer fell by 1% compared with the third quarter, the lease income of US $0.81 billion for the whole year increased by 8% year-on-year.

Ghesquiere "While there was a much-anticipated normalization in the retail market in the fourth quarter, some developments indicate a recovery in predictability and we are optimistic that the container rental market is now showing multiple positive signs of stabilization as we enter 2023." These leasing companies achieved record revenue in 2022 and will remain Textainer resilient in the first half of 2023 despite the market retreat.

Forwardernet.com