The China Container Industry Association forecasts a 30% drop in China’s container output in 2026, citing supply-demand rebalancing. With Chinese firms producing 95% of global containers, output fell to 6.45 million TEU in 2025 — down from peaks in 2021 and 2024. Dry container prices declined for four straight years, hitting $1,752/TEU in 2025 (vs. $1,985 in 2024), returning to pre-2020 levels. Liner operators now represent 55.4% of sales — up 9.3 percentage points — as leasing companies hold higher inventories. On 19 May 2026, the U.S. DoJ indicted Cosco Shipping Development, CIMC, CXIC, and Singamas for alleged price-fixing.
According to theloadstar.com, the China Container Industry Association (CCIA) expects container manufacturing output in China to decline by as much as 30% in 2026, driven by a structural rebalancing of global supply and demand. Chinese manufacturers produce 95% of the world’s containers, and after record production years in 2021, 2024, and 2025, the sector is entering a correction phase.
Output Trends and Five-Year Plan Performance
In 2025, China’s container output totaled 6.45 million TEU, ranking as the third-highest annual volume behind 2021 and 2024. Over the course of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025), average annual container output stood at 5.4 million TEU — a 70% increase over the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020). This surge was fueled first by pandemic-era shortages, then by Red Sea crisis–driven fleet expansion and delayed empty-container returns from Europe.
Price Decline and Market Shifts
Dry container prices have fallen for four consecutive years, returning to pre-2020 levels. Singamas, the fourth-largest container manufacturer, reported dry container prices dropped to $1,752 per TEU in 2025, down from $1,985 per TEU in 2024. The CCIA attributes this sustained pressure to oversupply following high containership deliveries and elevated inventory held by leasing companies.
The customer mix has shifted accordingly: liner operators now account for 55.4% of container sales, up 9.3 percentage points year-on-year, while leasing companies’ share declined proportionally. This reflects both reduced leasing demand and higher existing container inventories among lessors.
Production Forecast and Regulatory Pressure
For 2026, CCIA forecasts new-container production will range between 4.5 million and 5 million TEU. That represents a contraction of roughly 22–30% compared to 2025’s 6.45 million TEU. Concurrently, regulatory scrutiny has intensified: on 19 May 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Cosco Shipping Development — parent company of Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment (Dong Fang International Containers) — alongside CIMC, CXIC Group, and Singamas for alleged price-fixing through coordinated output restrictions.
Cosco Shipping Development stated it had yet to be formally notified of the indictment and confirmed its operations were continuing normally. Separately, Singamas CEO Teo Siong Seng was individually indicted on 22 May 2026, according to court filings cited by the source.
Industry Context and Supply Chain Implications
This correction follows a decade of volatility: global container production hit a 10-year low of 850,000 TEU in H1 2023, before rebounding sharply during the Red Sea crisis. In November 2024, Evergreen ordered 60,500 new containers at a cost of nearly $187 million, illustrating how liner-driven demand can temporarily override market fundamentals. Today, with freight rates softening and leasing inventories elevated, supply chain professionals face tighter capital allocation decisions — especially regarding container replacement cycles, lease-versus-buy strategies, and regional equipment deployment flexibility.
Source: The Loadstar
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
