Customer Trust First
"Our market share in the west coast of America rose to fifth place this year from 11th place last year," said Yoo Chang-keun, CEO of Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) in a meeting with reporters at the Hyundai Group Building in Seoul on December 19. "Hyundai Merchant Marine is eight and nine times smaller than 2M member companies, but we ranked fifth place on the west coast route, and Maersk sixth. This proves that Hyundai Merchant Marine has been trusted,” he added.
HMM announced that it was planning to achieve a market share of 5% by 2021. Currently, it is aiming to expand the capacity to about 800,000 to one million TEUs from about 450,000 TEUs (One TEU = one 6m container).
Yoo refuted the opinion that HMM joined the 2M Alliance imperfectly, saying, “2M was playing the media to differentiate itself from HMM. Shippers focus on using competitive services and do not care if shipping companied joined shipping alliances."
"Until some time ago, 2M has said to us, ‘You are on your own as the alliance is a matter of interpretation.' 2M does not allow us to use the name of the alliance to weaken HMM’s position after finding out that conditions for the self-rescue plan include becoming a member of a shipping alliance," said Lee Sang-shik, the head of the Container Planning Division who accompanied president Yoo on the day,
"2M intended to create a negative image of HMM through an alliance membership issue as American market contracts will start in earnest in February and March of next year," said Lee who was in charge of negotiating with 2M about becoming its member.
As for a possibility that Maersk will take over HMM in the future, Lee said that the possibility is slim. "I cannot say that there is no such possibility, but now the situation is changed. HMM is Korea’s only global shipping firm and it will be difficult to take over HMM because the company is supported by the government," Lee said.