(FT) -- AP Møller-Maersk has provided evidence that container shipping's sharp post-recession rebound is losing speed, warning that this year's fleet expansion is likely to outstrip growth in demand to move goods.
The Danish group gave the warning as it reported record net profits of $5bn for 2010.
These followed the first full-year loss in its 107-year history.
Maersk said it expected demand to grow 6 to 8 per cent and new ship deliveries to expand the fleet faster.
Alphaliner, a Paris consultancy, estimates this year's ship capacity growth at 8.8 per cent.
Nils Andersen, Maersk chief executive, said prospects were "softening" compared with 2010, when container lines had benefited from a combination of fast-growing demand and a shortage of capacity to meet it.
"What we're trying to convey is that 2011 will be a good year but probably not as good as 2010," he said.
Container shipping is seen as an indicator of economic health because of its role moving manufactured and semi-finished goods between manufacturing areas such as China and consumer regions such as Europe.
The industry's 2009 slump, when demand fell by 13 per cent, resulted from the collapse in consumer demand.
Prices rose last year because lines were unable to reactivate ships fast enough to meet the sudden return of demand.
"There were a lot of ships in layup; the containers were in all the wrong places," Mr Andersen said. "We were constantly running behind demand."
The squeeze pushed earnings per container shipped up by 29 per cent to $3,064 per forty-foot unit, after a 28 per cent fall in 2009.
Maersk's volume growth for the year, of 5 per cent, was behind the 13 per cent growth of the wider market partly because it had too few containers at some points to handle all the goods its customers wanted to move.
"We actually took market share in 2009 and we gave some back in 2010," Mr Andersen said.
For 2011, Maersk -- whose fleet is 13 per cent larger than that of Mediterranean Shipping Company, the next biggest -- planned to maintain a steady market share.
On Monday, Maersk Line, the group's container shipping line, announced an order for at least 10 big container ships, which will be the world's largest ships when delivered.
The company's B Shares, the most widely traded, fell DKr150 in Copenhagen to DKr51,650.
© The Financial Times Limited 2011
