Drewry pointed out in the "2019 Global Container Terminal Operators Annual Review and Forecast Report" that although there are many uncertainties, the future demand of global container ports will continue to grow moderately, but the business expansion plan has generally slowed down. This means that terminal utilization will increase in most parts of the world.

Drewry expects global container port demand to grow by an average of 4.4% per year over the next five years. The world container port throughput will increase from 784 million TEU in 2018 to 973 million TEU in 2023, an increase of nearly 190 million TEU.

The latest five-year forecast growth rate is far from the years after the millennium. At that time, the annual growth rate was forecast to be around 9%. It was not until 2008 that it was affected by the global financial crisis and began to stagnate.

The performance of the following locations is expected to significantly exceed the global average, especially in the Middle East/South Asia and Southeast Asia/Far East.

Large-scale investments in ports and terminals have gradually calmed down in recent years. Based on the data obtained, the annual compound growth rate of global container port throughput is expected to be around 2%. This is far below the expected increase in demand and reflects the wait-and-see attitude of investors in greenfield investment over the past few years. As a result, the average utilization rate of global terminals has increased from 70% in 2018 to 79% in 2023, which is a reasonable level for operators and customers.

From a regional perspective, it is expected that the average utilization level of terminals in all locations will increase. It is expected that there will be sharp positive fluctuations in Greater China and Southeast Asia, and the Greater China region may even reach 100% by 2023.

Neel Davidson, senior analyst and report author at Drewry's Port and Terminal, said: "The pace of rapid capacity expansion will be suspended, and the next focus will be on integrating port and terminal ownership into large groups. Due to trade wars and US unilateral trade protection There is a certain degree of uncertainty in the growth of China’s international trade, which also indicates that the Chinese government is cautious about this."

Based on the performance of various global terminal operators, the top seven global participants in 2018 (as adjusted by equity ratio):

Singapore Port Group and Hutchison Port Group occupy the first and second positions respectively. Singapore Port Group has a 20% stake in Hutchison Port, which has a dominant position. The Group's 2018 throughput increased by 7.2% to 60.3 million TEU. The port of Hutchison remained basically unchanged. Last year, the throughput was 46.7 million TEU, down 0.2%. Due to the acquisition of OOCL, COSCO maritime rose from the fifth place in 2017 to the third place in 2018, surpassing Dubai Universal and Maersk Wharf. Container throughput increased by more than 32% to 46.1 million TEU; Dubai Global and Maersk Terminal ranked fourth and fifth respectively. Last year, throughput was 44.2 million TEU and 42.8 million TEU, an increase of 3.3% and 7.8%; China Merchants The port and TIL completed 35.1 million TEU and 26.5 million TEU last year, ranking sixth and seventh, with an increase of 13.1% and 10.1%.

China not only has one of the largest liner companies in the world, but now it is also eyeing the port. It is reported that the port business of COSCO Shipping is now close to the second in the world.

It is now the competition of the seven major operators, the eighth is only one-third of the previous one, they have completed nearly 40% of the global container throughput in 2018.

Among them, COSCO Shipping has the largest increase. Drewry pointed out that after the acquisition of OOCL, COSCO SHIPPING Group ranked third among the global container terminal operators and is very close to the second and Huang port. At present, COSCO Shipping attaches great importance to the business of OOCL, and the location of the Yellow Port is at stake.