SIMIC

It depends a bit on how you count. Strictly speaking there are 5 lines left out of the top-20 in 1980. Listed in the order of their size in 1980 they are: Hapag Lloyd, Maersk, Evergreen, Zim and Yangming. Additionally there are 5 brand names left, but they are now owned by other lines: Sealand (owned by Maersk, and only recently "revived" as a brand name), CGM (acquired by CMA and became CMA CGM in 1996), APL (now part of CMA CGM), OOCL (now part of COSCO) and ACL (now part of Grimaldi). And then of course there was Safmarine but they will now disappear. Some have disappeared altogether: OCL, Nedlloyd, USL, BBS, Seatrain and ACT. And finally NYK, MOL and K-Line have disappeared as container brand name and been replaced by the combined entity ONE.

Incidentally these 20 largest lines controlled 40% of the global capacity 40 years ago. The 20 largest lines today control 93%.

Mr. Lars Jensen - senior expert on shipping industry with successful launch of an independent global marketing intelligency company focusng on cntainer shipping and in charge of market intelligence for Maersk line as well as developing a global market intelligence organisation across 17 different countries