Sector development

Global container traffic traffic displayed a high level of resilience in the face of significant headwinds during the past year. Despite the ongoing crisis in the Red Sea, tighter and more volatile customs policies and various disruptions in supply chains, the world’s container ports recorded throughput growth of 5.8 % in the first nine months of 2025. And according to the latest Drewry estimates, significant growth is also expected for the fourth quarter – albeit at a more moderate rate than in the previous quarters. With this in mind, Drewry’s analysts have upgraded their forecast and now expect growth of 5.5 % for 2025 as a whole.

Container throughput growth exceeded expectations in several regions outside North America. While US trade and economic policy contributed to a slowdown in container throughput in North America, the US government's stricter customs policy led to an increase in container growth in other regions. In order to offset declining goods flows to the USA, China expanded its export activities to other regions and thus changed well-established global trade patterns.

For Asia, the region with the highest throughput worldwide, market research institute Drewry expects a 5.5 % increase in container volume in the reporting year. Chinese ports are also expected to post year-on-year growth of 5.5 %.

There was also significant throughput growth across Europe: according to Drewry estimates, container volumes at European ports increased by 6.3 % overall in 2025. Ports in Scandinavia and the Baltic region, as well as the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, performing particularly well with growth rates of 8.9 % and 9.6 %, respectively. Growth in the North-West Europe shipping region was slightly down on the previous year at 5.6 %.

The trend among the major container ports of the North Range, as well as the largest ports of the Baltic Sea, was mixed during the reporting year. In the Port of Hamburg, throughput volume was 7.3 % up on the previous year at 8.3 million TEU (previous year: 7.8 million TEU). Europe’s largest container port, Rotterdam, achieved throughput of 14.2 million TEU, representing an increase of 3.1 %. Container throughput in the port of Antwerp-Bruges rose slightly by 0.7 % to 13.6 million TEU in 2025.

Up to and including November 2025, throughput volumes at the Bremen ports rose by 9.3 % to 4.5 million TEU. The JadeWeserPort in Wilhelmshaven achieved exceptionally strong growth of 86.3 % in the first three quarters of 2025, almost doubling its throughput. In September, it exceeded the 1 million TEU mark for the first time. The Polish port of Gdánsk also set a new record with throughput growth of 23 % to almost 2.8 million TEU.

The study for freight and passenger transport commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport was most recently published on the basis of data from August 2025 and includes a forecast for 2025 as a whole.

As in the previous year, the data assumes further decreases in freight and cargo across all modes of transport in Germany; the only exception is combined road/rail transport. According to the data, transport volumes are expected to be down by 1.3 % year-on-year, while the rise in transport capacity – transport volume multiplied by the distance travelled – is likely to decrease by as much as 1.5 %. Road transport is expected to decrease by 1.2 %, while transport capacity is set to shrink by 1.5 %. Rail transport volumes are expected to increase by 1.5 % during the forecast period, with transport capacity decreasing by 1.1 %. By contrast, intermodal transport is expected to continue to experience growth – following strong growth in the previous year: Volumes are expected to rise by 0.9 %, while transport capacity is set to be 1.5 % up on the prior-year level.