Q1 2023
Demand
Declining volumes, regional variations, and reefer container growth
Continued rate declines and capacity reductions by carriers prove the very poor start to 2023 for container shipping. Global volumes fell by 9.9% in January compared to last year. Inbound container volumes have fallen in all regions of the world, though with some faring much worse than others.
In both percentage and absolute volumes the biggest year-on-year decline was for imports into North America. These are down by almost a fifth from last year (-19.7%). Despite this decline with imports of 2.3 million tonnes it remains the region with the most inbound volumes.
This is the first time in many years that imports into North America are underperforming those into Europe. Imports into Europe fell by less than half of those into North America, down by 7.8%. A shift from recent years where stronger GDP growth and a higher share of the economy being driven by consumer spending led container imports into the US and North America to grow at a higher speed.
The Indian subcontinent and Middle East experienced the least decline in volumes, with a decrease of about 18,000 TEU (-1.5%) compared to the same period last year.
As expected, the global decline in inbound volumes has also impacted exports from the Far East, with a decrease of 13.9% in January. Even compared to January 2019, Far East exports are down by 6.3%. Intra-Asian volumes, which had previously shown resilience in the region, are now underperforming compared to the rest of the world. This is evident in the largest trade in the world, where volumes decreased by 375,000 TEU (-9.8%).
Reefer volumes have continued to perform better than dry containers, with a growth of 3.7% in January. South America, the largest exporter of reefers, experienced a slight increase of 0.6% from January 2022, driven by growth in the East Coast, which increased by 4.6%. On the other hand, exports out of Europe, another major exporter of reefer containers, decreased by 6.4% year on year, indicating its slowest start to the year since 2019.
