The 2M breakup; what can ports expect?

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The 2M breakup in 2025, announced recently, came as a bit of a surprise, although Maersk in particular portrays it as a logical consequence of their integrator strategy.

This integrator strategy implies a focus on providing a larger bundle of services than just shipping. As a consequence, Maersk needs to control its operations to be able to oﬀer reliability and adjust to disruptions that may emerge.

Maersk has been able to grow its integrator volumes substantially; over the last years, partly because the scarcity of containers and shipping capacity made it easier to strike long term agreements with shippers.

However, Maersk’s annual report shows that, generally speaking, it provides land transport for one out of three containers it transports by sea, while it provides logistics services for roughly one out of ten containers it transports by sea. Especially when it comes to land-transport, Maersk’s share is not higher than that of MSC.

There are huge diﬀerences in the service provision of both carriers in diﬀerent regions/ countries/ports. Therefore, it is problematic for any carrier, including Maersk, to claim to have the best overall logistics value proposition across all important markets.

All of this implies that the maritime service network of shipping lines continues to be a competitive diﬀerentiator, and perhaps even the most important diﬀerentiator for shipping lines. Given that MSC has a much larger orderbook than Maersk, and that Maersk’s capacity once 2M is over is lower than that of the two remaining main alliances, this leaves Maersk in a bit of a vulnerable position.

Unless a main shake-up of the other alliances or a take-over occurs, ports will be looking to make sure they have a strong involvement with MSC (through TIL) and Maersk (through APMT) in their respective port. This is especially relevant given their increasing focus on either a door-to-door or a more extended integrated logistics service bundle.

Ports that already have terminals for both (like Rotterdam, Valencia, and Bremerhafen in Europe) may be positioned to benefit from the 2M breakup. Thus once more, port companies are reminded not to take the existing alliance structure for granted only change is constant!