Carrier concentration: what it means for forwarders

Four shipping lines control 58.7% of global container capacity. MSC leads with 21.6%, followed by Maersk at 13.8%, CMA CGM at 12.7% and COSCO at 10.6%, according to Transporte Moderno based on June 2026 data. The ten largest carriers account for 84% of the entire active fleet of 33.6 million TEU. If you run a freight forwarding operation on routes to and from Brazil, that number tells you how few options you actually have when you need space at a rate that still leaves margin.

Four groups define the space forwarders buy

This concentration has been building for years. A decade ago, the twenty largest shipping lines shared the market more evenly. Mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies pushed volume into fewer hands. Today, a forwarder running imports from Asia relies on two or three of these four groups for most bookings on the China-to-Brazil trade lane.

The orderbook for new vessels has reached 13 million TEU, a record, according to the same Transporte Moderno report. The global fleet grew 4.3% in 2026, while projected demand rose 3.1%. On paper, that gap should push freight rates down. In practice, carriers manage supply through blank sailings: they cancel scheduled voyages to keep vessel utilization above 90%. So rates respond to the capacity carriers choose to offer, not to installed capacity.

That means the price of freight depends as much on a carrier’s commercial decision as on supply and demand. When MSC pulled 27% of capacity from the East Coast South America to U.S. East Coast corridor, dropping from 32,328 TEU to 23,513 TEU between July 2025 and mid-2026, rates from Santos to the U.S. East Coast jumped from below $2,000/FEU to over $3,000/FEU, according to Trans-Border Global. Any forwarder who depended on that service saw margins evaporate before the container shipped.

Alliances have reshaped Brazil’s route map

In February 2025, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd launched the Gemini Cooperation, replacing the former 2M. The Ocean Alliance continues with CMA CGM, COSCO, Evergreen and OOCL. The Premier Alliance brings together ONE, HMM and Yang Ming. Each restructuring changes port calls in Brazil, transshipment hubs and effective transit times.

Gemini prioritized schedule reliability and achieved 81% on-time performance, above the market average. The global average, though, dropped to 62.6%, according to FUPNews. Nearly four in ten vessels arrive outside the scheduled window. For a forwarder, every day of delay is another day of cargo in transit, less free time at destination, and another call from an importer asking where the shipment is.

Latin America accounts for 14% of global carrier capacity, according to Transporte Moderno. It is the third-largest region, behind only Asia and Europe. But allocated capacity shifts when carriers redeploy vessels between trades. A service that called at Navegantes last quarter can be repositioned to Southeast Asia, and the forwarder who quoted a 32-day transit on that route now has to re-quote with a service that transships in Cartagena and takes 40.

For mid-size forwarders, concentration means dependency

A large importer moving a thousand containers a month negotiates directly with the carrier and locks in contract rates. A mid-size forwarder handling fifty or a hundred containers across multiple routes enters the negotiation with less leverage. That volume does not guarantee space priority when utilization tightens, and it does not lock in a rate that absorbs spot swings.

When the market rises, mid-size forwarders feel it first. Carriers prioritize the direct shipper and the large consolidator. The smaller forwarder’s booking goes into the queue, and when the vessel is full, it rolls to the following week. A rollover means a missed transit time, a complaint from the importer, and the risk of losing that client to a competitor who shipped on the agreed sailing.

Brazilian containerized imports through intermodal transport operators grew 16% in the first five months of 2026, reaching 974,100 TEU, according to Transporte Moderno. Exports rose just 5.1%. That imbalance squeezes empty container availability for exports and reinforces the carrier’s bargaining position: ship more volume, get better terms; ship less, pay more or wait longer.

Spot rates tell the story of concentration

The China-to-Brazil trade lane shows what this concentration produces when carriers actively manage capacity. In early 2026, freight for a 40-foot container from China to Santos sat around $900 to $1,500, according to data compiled by Transporte Moderno. By September, the peak reached $9,616 per FEU, according to Flux Comex. More than a sixfold increase in eight months.

Several things drove that surge at once: vessel utilization near 98% on Asia-to-Latin America routes, rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Red Sea, rising oil prices pushing bunker costs up, targeted blank sailings, and temporary closures of Chinese ports due to typhoons. Any one of these would have had a moderate effect. Together, in a market where four companies control nearly 60% of capacity, they compound. A single carrier’s decision about where to position vessels can change the available supply for entire regions.

Since mid-September, rates have pulled back about 17%, to the $7,900/FEU range. The correction follows the end of pre-holiday front-loading and a natural adjustment after the peak. A forwarder who quoted an importer at the September peak and needs to re-quote in October is working with a margin that depends on when the container ships, what rate the carrier charged that booking week, and what exchange rate applied. Spot volatility is, to a large extent, the result of so few companies controlling the supply.

What a freight forwarder can do within this market structure

Carrier concentration is a structural reality. There is no sign the market will deconcentrate, so forwarders working the Brazil trades need to operate within it.

Spreading volume across two or three carriers on each major route reduces exposure to a unilateral capacity cut. If MSC cancels a sailing at Santos, the forwarder with an active booking on CMA CGM or Hapag-Lloyd redirects without losing the week. We see this consistently with the forwarders we work with in Brazil.

Watching blank sailing announcements also helps. When a carrier announces cancellations on a route, the spot rate usually rises in the following weeks. A forwarder who catches the notice before quoting can adjust the customer’s expectations or move the booking forward to the week before the cut.

Short-term contracts (three to six months) provide a predictable rate base without locking the forwarder into a price that may sit above market when the cycle turns. A forwarder can lock part of volume under contract and use spot for the remainder, adjusting the mix as conditions change.

Per-shipment margin visibility ties all of this together. A forwarder who can see the margin projected at quote, the margin invoiced, and the margin realized at settlement knows, shipment by shipment, when the numbers work and when freight has eaten the profit. Without that visibility, any freight procurement strategy is a guess that only gets confirmed at month-end close.

How Tier2 Cargo makes margin visible in every freight scenario

That margin cycle is built into Tier2 Cargo’s workflow. At the quoting stage, the system records the projected margin with the freight and costs the forwarder included in the proposal. As the shipment progresses and carrier invoices arrive, the margin updates automatically with the actual rate, the exchange rate on the invoice date, and surcharges that appeared after the quote. At settlement, the final number shows the gap between what was quoted and what actually remained, with three exchange-rate captures across the life of the shipment.

When freight can swing 17% in three weeks, tracking that number in real time, shipment by shipment, is what lets a forwarder adjust before the month closes.

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The surplus of vessels on order (13 million TEU entering the fleet over the coming years) could reverse the freight cycle in 2027 if demand does not keep pace. A forwarder with visibility into its own margins and diversified freight suppliers can handle either direction: if rates rise, it knows where the numbers stop working and adjusts pricing; if rates fall, it knows where there is room to compete without sacrificing the operation.