TransContainer
3300
Maritime Lines
Top Shipping Companies Operating on Key Global Maritime Trade Routes in 2025.
his ranking identifies the leading maritime companies based on the number and scope of major trade routes they operate, including Transpacific, Asia–Europe, Transatlantic, and intra-regional corridors. Updated for 2025, it highlights carrier dominance in high-traffic commercial lanes.
This ranking is based on how many strategic global shipping lanes a carrier operates on, reflecting their commercial influence and trade lane specialization.
We extract route data from carrier schedules, service alliances, and public shipping lane databases.
Confirmed via AIS tracking, trade route registries, and route classification (eg, Asia-Europe, Transatlantic).
Source: Seadex aggregated data, 2026
The top 10 carriers represent 89.2% of the global metric across 103 companies.
Average value across the 103 carriers tracked in our database.
Combined value across all carriers with available data.
Source: Seadex aggregated data, 2026
Carriers from China, Japan, and South Korea remain dominant on the Transpacific and Intra-Asia routes.
European carriers, particularly MSC and Maersk, are leading operators on the Asia–Europe and Transatlantic lanes.
Carriers are ranked by total active participation in core global trade routes, factoring in frequency, directionality, and vessel capacity allocation.
Trade lane participation is reviewed quarterly to reflect service changes, demand shifts, or alliance restructures.
Operating on the world’s major shipping routes is a strong indicator of cargo volume handling, commercial reach, and carrier competitiveness.
Presence on key trade lanes enables companies to influence freight rates, schedules, and service standards.
Multi-route operations support clients with diverse logistical needs across regions.
It positions carriers as preferred partners for high-volume, global logistics contracts.
This data set ranks companies by the number of active major trade routes they operate in 2025. The more routes covered, the stronger their network integration and service flexibility for global cargo transport.
| Rank | Company | Maritime Lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | 20000 |
| 2 | | 3300 |
| 3 |  | 404 |
| 4 |  | 330 |
| 5 |  | 300 |
| 6 |  | 257 |
| 7 |  | 200 |
| 8 |  | 200 |
| 9 |  | 165 |
| 10 |  | 165 |
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