Global number of container ships 2011-2021

Over 5,400 container ships were serving sea routes worldwide in 2021. China, Japan, and South Korea were the world's major shipbuilding nations in 2020.

The global ocean fleet

Over the past decade, the number of container ships in the the global fleet increased from 4,966 ships in 2011 to 5,534 ships in 2021, while the carrying capacity of the global merchant fleet reached roughly two billion deadweight tons in 2020. Based on the chartered twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), Mediterranean Shipping Co. is the leading container ship operator worldwide.

The impact of COVID-19 on ports

As of the beginning of March 2020, about 80 blank sailings were announced in global maritime traffic due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with China being the worst-hit region at the beginning. Between the Chinese New Year and mid-March, 108 blank sailings were announced on deep-sea shipping routes due to the pandemic. In Latin America, some ports were negatively affected, while others experienced a year-on-year increase in container traffic in the 1st quarter of 2020.