Car carrier Höegh Autoliners will add Baltimore and Jacksonville as U.S. calls on its Europe-Oceania routes, American Shipper reports. The company has already grown significantly in the past two years. It was the fourth largest shipper on U.S.-inbound, seaborne routes for carriage of passenger vehicles in 2017, Panjiva data shows, after growing by 103% vs. 2016. It still lags well behind number one operator Wallenius Wilhelmsen, which is 1.9x larger, but is within 15% of Mitsui OSK and 7% of K-Line.

Chart segments U.S. seaborne imports of passenger vehicles (HS 8703) by carrier. Source: Panjiva

Further growth for Höegh would require entering fundamentally new markets – Baltimore and Jacksonville already account for 19.6% of its shipments. The biggest gaps in route coverage are on west-coast routes, though this would require competing with the Japanese shippers head-on, as well as CMA-CGM which leads on routes into Los Angeles.

Chart segments U.S. seaborne imports of passenger vehicles (HS 8703) by carrier and U.S. destination port, denominated in number of shipments. Source: Panjiva