Higher deliveries of container ships, especially ultra-large container ships (ULCSs), will make the sector more challenging in the short term.

IHS Maritime's Sea-web.com data show 1,906,008 teu of container ships that would be delivered this year, including 70 ULCSs.

Last year 1,517,125 teu of container ships were delivered, including 60 ULCSs.

Italian broker Banchero Costa noted that trade growth has been languishing at low single-digit percentages.

The company said, "The market remains challenging as on the supply side there is the lurking issue of overcapacity and damaging price wars."

In response, carriers have been consolidating via mergers or through alliances.

Hapag-Lloyd merged with CSAV to create the fourth-largest carrier. On the other hand Maersk, MSC, and CMA CGM tried to create the P3 alliance, which was shot down by the Chinese anti-trust authorities on fair competition grounds.

However, the effort to consolidate did not stop there: Maersk created the 2M alliance with Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), and CMA CGM created the Ocean Three alliance with United Arab Shipping Company and China Shipping Container Lines.

Scrapping has been more or less confined to smaller ships, resulting in a net decline in the trading fleet of container ships smaller than 5,000 teu.

According to Banchero Costa, "Over the next year, the container market will still need to deal with the deliveries of ever-larger vessels and the slow growth in demand. It will be interesting to see the impact of the two new alliances on the market."