About
Maersk's defining bet was made in 1973, when the Danish shipping company ordered the first container vessels in its fleet — a decade after the container revolution began, but with a conviction that would make it the world's largest container shipping line. Founded in 1904 as a tramp steamer operator by A.P. Møller, the company grew through two world wars into a diversified empire spanning shipping, oil, and ports. Today Maersk is the world's largest container shipping company, moving roughly one in five of the containers shipped globally on its fleet of about 700 vessels. Its integrated logistics model — shipping lines, port terminals (APM Terminals), and inland trucking and warehousing — lets it offer door-to-door freight, a strategy it calls 'end-to-end logistics'. Its Maersk Line brand is the industry benchmark for on-time delivery. Headquartered in Copenhagen with about 100,000 employees and annual revenue near US$55 billion, Maersk has been transformed by its energy divestments: it sold its oil business to Total and its drilling unit in the 2010s to focus purely on logistics. The company's fortunes swing violently with global trade — freight rates surged during the pandemic, then collapsed — but its scale, terminal network, and green ambitions (methanol-powered container ships) keep it the industry's anchor tenant.
Also known as: Maersk
