HMM joins THE Alliance

• South Korean container shipping company HMM becomes full member of container alliance THE Alliance
• HMM has been in a strategic partnership with Maersk’s 2M alliance for several years

South Korea’s biggest container shipping company joins container alliance THE Alliance.

HMM has been in a strategic partnership with Maersk and MSC in the 2M alliance since the beginning of 2017, however never as a full member.

The company’s agreement with 2M expires in April 2020, and as late as April this year, HMM’s new chief executive Jae-hoon Bae visited Maersk in Copenhagen. However, at the time the company said it was open to extending its partnership with Maersk and MSC. Instead, HMM ended up joining rivalling alliance THE Alliance, which will henceforth include shipping companies Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express (ONE), Yang Ming and now also HMM.

“HMM is a great fit for THE Alliance as they will provide a number of new and modern vessels, which will help us to deliver better quality and be more efficient – and it will help us also to further reduce our emissions,” says Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen in a press release.

The agreement between the four container liners was signed in Taipei in Taiwan two weeks ago and runs through 2030.

HMM has ordered 12 newbuilds of 23,000 teu each, slated for delivery in the second quarter of 2020. They will be deployed on THE Alliance’s routes in the Far East. Additionally, another eight newbuilds of 15,000 teu each are slated for delivery in the second quarter of 2021.

There are three major alliances in the container market: 2M (Maersk & MSC), THE Alliance (Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Yang Ming and HMM) and Ocean Alliance (Cosco, OOCL, CMA CGM and Evergreen).