Maersk Added Three New Asia Services in May. Hapag-Lloyd Is Merging With ZIM Instead. Two Carrier Strategies for Q3 Peak Season.

Three of the world’s largest container carriers — Maersk, CMA CGM, and Hapag-Lloyd — all reported their Q1 2026 results in May with one common storyline: ocean freight rates have compressed margins to multi-year lows across the segment. Their strategic responses look nothing alike.

Maersk‘s Ocean segment swung to a $192 million EBIT loss in Q1 from a $743 million profit a year earlier, then launched three new services in May — including a dedicated India-China weekly that begins sailing on June 4. CMA CGM‘s maritime EBITDA fell 41.3% to $1.39 billion in Q1, and through that same quarter the carrier rolled out a 41-lane DAY 10 OCEAN Alliance product, opened a new Japan-South China-Northern Europe service, ordered six new LNG-powered containerships at Cochin Shipyard in India, and took delivery of its 400th owned vessel. Hapag-Lloyd posted a $256 million net loss for Q1 — and instead of expanding, the company is doubling down on its pending merger with ZIM and what CEO Rolf Habben Jansen described as “rigorous cost management.”

Three carriers, three Q1 ocean losses, two very different bets on how Q3 plays out. Reading what each carrier is committing to in May tells shippers more about peak-season expectations than reading the rate indices does.

The Q1 picture: rates compressed, volumes held

Q1 2026 was rough across all three carriers, but it wasn’t a demand collapse. Volumes held up. The damage came from lower per-box revenue, the operational cost of the Strait of Hormuz blockage, and severe weather in Europe and North America through January and February.

Carrier	Group EBITDA	YoY direction	Ocean / Liner segment	Avg revenue / TEU
Maersk	$1.8B	Down from $2.7B (~33%)	Ocean EBIT: -$192M (loss)	Ocean volume +9.3%; rates down ~14%
CMA CGM	$2.1B	-31.6%	Maritime EBITDA: $1.39B (-41.3%)	$1,351 (-9.8%)
Hapag-Lloyd	$494M	Down ~55% from prior year	Liner Shipping EBIT: -$174M (loss)	$1,330 (down from $1,471)
Source: Maersk Interim Report Q1 2026; CMA CGM First-Quarter 2026 Financial Results; Hapag-Lloyd Q1 2026 press release.

Hapag-Lloyd estimated the Hormuz disruption alone was costing the company €50–60 million per week in Q1. Maersk pegged similar Middle East operational disruption at roughly $0.5 billion per month in extra costs, partially offset by surcharges. None of this is a demand-side problem — every carrier saw volumes stable or growing. The pressure is sitting on per-container economics.

Track 1: Maersk and CMA CGM expand Asia capacity

The most concrete signal from Maersk’s May is the FI2 service launching westbound from Shanghai on June 4. Six vessels of 4,500 TEU nominal capacity, weekly frequency, with a port rotation of Shanghai → Ningbo → Nansha → Tanjung Pelepas → Nhava Sheva → Pipavav → Port Qasim.

The Pipavav call is the operational tell. Pipavav sits on India’s northwestern coast in Gujarat and serves as a gateway to the country’s Dedicated Freight Corridor — a high-capacity freight rail network designed to move containers from the western ports deep into northern India. As Maersk South Asia’s Managing Director Thomas Theeuwes framed it in the launch announcement, the FI2 is positioned to combine ocean and DFC rail into a single integrated offering. That’s not a quick capacity grab. That’s a multi-quarter bet on India-China trade volume holding.

FI2 is one of three Maersk service moves in May:

FI2 (Far East Asia → India Subcontinent) — 6 vessels, 4,500 TEU, weekly, first sailing June 4
SLA service launched — 5 vessels, 2,800–5,000 TEU capacity range
Qilin — new China-Australia service, complementing the existing Dragon service, connecting Shanghai, Sydney, and Melbourne

Maersk is also launching a Seasonal Transpacific Loader Service (TPX) — connecting Vietnam and South Korea to the U.S. West Coast, with first loading from Vung Tau on June 9 and a fleet of 5–7 vessels in the 3,500–4,600 TEU range. The service runs through the end of Q3 to handle the early peak demand. New $2,000/FEU Peak Season Surcharges have already been filed for the transpacific lanes effective June 17. In the same Q1 that produced the ocean loss, Maersk also ordered eight new 18,600 TEU dual-fuel vessels for 2029–2030 delivery.

CMA CGM‘s investment pattern was broader and largely played out through Q1 itself. The carrier took delivery of the CMA CGM Monte Cristo in January — its 400th owned vessel and the first in a six-ship series of methanol-powered containerships — rolled out the DAY 10 product line marking the OCEAN Alliance’s 10-year anniversary with 41 East-West services at 5.3 million TEU of capacity, and launched the Ocean Rise Express connecting Japan, South China, and Northern Europe. In India, CMA CGM ordered six new LNG-powered ships at Cochin Shipyard and committed to recruiting up to 1,500 Indian crew by the end of 2026. Group Chairman and CEO Rodolphe Saadé framed the strategy in the Q1 release as “the strength of our shipping activities and the diversification of our business model.”

Adding to the cross-carrier Asia pattern: COSCO Shipping Lines in late May reinstated its SKX1 shuttle between Singapore and Kolkata using a 900 TEU vessel, plus slot-sharing on an existing BTL/X-Press Feeders service on the same route. SKX1 had been shut down “late last year” in a network rationalization. Bringing it back signals COSCO sees enough East-India volume returning to justify direct capacity again.

Track 2: Hapag-Lloyd consolidates

Hapag-Lloyd’s Q1 was the worst of the three by margin contraction — Group EBITDA fell roughly 55% year-over-year to $494 million, and Group EBIT swung to a $157 million loss. The carrier’s response is structural rather than operational.

Hapag is moving forward with its merger with ZIM, which received shareholder approval in Q1 and is expected to close in Q4 2026 pending regulatory clearance. Habben Jansen used the Q1 release to emphasize Strategy 2030, cost management, and the resilience of the Gemini Cooperation network rather than new service launches. Hapag’s terminal segment grew — EBITDA rose to $47 million on the back of consolidating J M Baxi’s container terminal business in India and volume growth in Latin America — but in liner shipping, the message is discipline and integration, not expansion.

The contrast with Maersk and CMA CGM is sharp. Two carriers that posted ocean losses in Q1 added capacity in May. One that posted a deeper Q1 net loss responded by reducing organizational footprint through a merger and tightening costs. They’re looking at the same market and seeing different things.

What both bets are reading: an early peak season

The capacity-expansion side has been making a peak-season demand bet that’s increasingly visible in the rate data. According to Freightos’s May 26 update, weekly ocean rate moves on the Freightos Baltic Index showed:

Asia–Mediterranean (FBX13): +20% to nearly $4,400/FEU — surpassing the March wartime high by $100/FEU
Asia–US East Coast (FBX03): +14%
Asia–US West Coast (FBX01): +13%
Asia–North Europe (FBX11): +3% to ~$2,900/FEU — back to the wartime high hit at the end of March

Drivers behind the climb include three that matter for Q3 planning. Contracted shippers are frontloading ahead of higher July Bunker Adjustment Factors. Amazon shifted Prime Day from July to June, pulling transpacific volume forward by several weeks. Red Sea diversions continue to extend lead times for European importers, which forces additional cargo to book earlier than it otherwise would have. Maersk, CMA CGM, MSC, and Hapag-Lloyd have all filed June PSSs or GRIs in the $600–$2,000/FEU range to push rates further through mid-June.

The expansion carriers are positioning to capture demand they expect to be there. The consolidation carrier is reducing structural cost so that whatever rate environment plays out, the post-merger entity can absorb it. Both strategies are coherent reads of Q1. They just disagree about what the second half of 2026 looks like.

If your team is reconciling allocation changes, new service strings, and PSS filings across multiple carriers heading into peak season, a 30-minute walkthrough of how teams consolidate multi-carrier updates in one view might save you the spreadsheet work.

What shippers should watch in the next 30–60 days

Three concrete things to track if you book Asia-origin volume into June and Q3:

Allocation discipline on new strings. Maersk’s FI2 starts June 4 with 6 vessels at 4,500 TEU. The first 4–6 weeks of any new string typically run below nominal capacity as customers shift bookings over. Forwarders that get allocation commitments early on FI2 may find capacity easier to confirm than on the more saturated existing FI3 service.

Whether June PSS filings stick. Carriers have stacked filings of $600 to $2,000 per FEU effective in early-to-mid June across major east-west trades. The Asia-Mediterranean +20% move in the week ending May 22 suggests recent GRIs are holding, but Asia-North Europe only moved +3%, which is softer support. Whether Q3 invoice lines reflect the announced amounts or carriers walk back partial implementations depends on June 1–15 booking volumes.

Hapag-Lloyd/ZIM integration risk on Gemini reliability. Hapag’s Gemini Cooperation network with Maersk has been the carrier’s strongest competitive pitch on schedule reliability through Q1. ZIM operates separately. How the merger close in Q4 affects Gemini operational continuity — and whether ZIM’s network gets folded in, kept parallel, or rationalized — is a Q4 question that will shape Q1 2027 schedule choices. Shippers with reliability-sensitive bookings on Gemini lanes should track regulatory progress on the deal closely through Q3.

None of these are forecasts. They’re things the Q1 results plus the May moves make worth watching. If Maersk and CMA CGM are right about demand, allocation tightens on their new strings through Q3. If Hapag-Lloyd is right about discipline, the carriers expanding now will be the ones renegotiating rates downward in Q4.

Q1 financial figures, service launch details, rate movements, and surcharge filings referenced in this post are drawn from carrier Q1 2026 earnings releases, the Freightos Baltic Index May 26, 2026 update, and verified trade-press reporting. Carrier service launches, route rotations, and PSS amounts are subject to change at carrier discretion.

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