Is market concentration in the terminal operating and liner shipping industry threatening the market position of the HLH range port authorities?

In the few decades that the container has been utilized within maritime transport, this universal transport box has put a distinctive mark on the shipping industry. In the past three decades the container industry grew an average of 9.2 percent per year. Other industries such as liquids and dry bulk grew much slower with an average of 1.8 and 3.1 percent per year. The strong growth of containerized transport had a large impact on global trade, on the maritime shipping sector and on the seaports. This Master’s thesis will focus on the ports that are located within the Hamburg Le Havre (HLH) range. The container throughput of the HLH range increased almost nine fold from 4.8 million Twenty foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) in 1980 to 40 million TEUs in 2008. Over the course of the years the playing field within the HLH range ports changed from small sized local players, to the entrance of large scale global terminal operating companies. Together with the growth and maturation of the container industry challenges like market concentration arose. Market concentration takes place whenever a couple of players hold an above average share within an industry and are capable of negatively affecting competition by utilizing market power.