Once seen as niche, one-way container leasing is gaining momentum as the preferred model for freight forwarders, logistics firms, and carriers navigating cost pressures, geopolitical disruptions, and sustainability targets. With the global leasing market forecast to more than double by 2030, this new model could be the future of global trade infrastructure.

The importance of shipping to the global economy is not to be under-estimated.

Some 11 billion tons of goods are transported by sea carriers each year, according to the International Chamber of Shipping. This includes almost two billion tons of crude oil, one billion tons of iron ore (the majority of it used in steel production), and 350 million tons of grain. At those volumes, invariably, there are bound to be logistical challenges.

Christian Roeloffs, chief executive officer of the Hamburg-based Container xChange, a neutral online platform for container logistics, is acutely aware of the problems posed by modern-day commercial shipping. He is in the business of helping container operators and owners find suitable partners, while managing trade containers on a day-to-day basis and dealing with all the accompanying lease requirements.

The container market is still digesting the over-capacity that was created in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, he points out. Market shocks, such as the Red Sea diversions that were caused by the deadly attacks on commercial shipping lanes by the Yemeni Houthis, only temporarily tighten market supply, he adds. Tensions escalated on 19 November 2023, when the Houthis hijacked a commercial ship in the Red Sea. In the weeks and months that followed, they launched dozens of missile and drone strikes on merchant vessels, resulting in the sinking of two ships, the seizure of a third, and the deaths of four crew members.

Figures supplied by the research outfit Sea-Intelligence reveal that the container market exceeded expectations in 2024, with volumes rising by 6.2% (year-on-year), as the Red Sea issue forced container carriers to abandon the easier, and more direct routing through the Suez Canal, into safer waters that inevitably involved more time-consuming and costlier routings around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

Market outlook

Subdued demand and excess tonnage are the key themes that are expected to dominate well into next year, unless scrapping accelerates significantly, says Roeloffs. This is particularly true in what can be described as a high-volatility environment presently being experienced, when daily tariff changes can “choke-off demand in an instant,” he adds.

Leasing rates are extremely sensitive to any type of disruption, he underlines, and at the moment there is clearly a good deal of that for both lessors and lessees to contemplate.

According to Roeloffs, if shocks persist, leasing demand will remain strong but, fundamentally, lower container demand and high equipment availability could put pressure on lease rates, as leasing equipment is the first to be reduced from carriers’ fleets.

Thus, in an environment of elevated financing costs, reduced leasing rates will invariably pose a challenge for leasing companies, he warns.

Aleksandrs Gnedovs is another expert with his finger on the pulse of the container leasing industry, who is involved in operational decision-making and key deals in his role as managing director of Conway Container Solutions, a global player in the container trading and leasing business. Gnedovs is presently eying a cautious market, noting the fact that ocean freight rates tumbled earlier this year, but are expected to gradually rebound.

The market is plagued with uncertainty, he warns, whether it be US-China trade policy, European regulation, or other factors such as the Israel-Iran crisis. The latter of course gives rise to the possibility of a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint for the passage of oil tankers, should tensions escalate again after calming following US intervention.

These geopolitical factors, together with anticipated overcapacity corrections, will likely spur steady, but moderate market growth throughout the remainder of 2025, and into 2026, Gnedovs believes. His company is well positioned to take advantage of this, having launched sales initiatives, notably in North America and Central Asia, while significantly expanding its leasing operations. Major shipping lines, such as CMA CGM (with almost 600 vessels to its name), and Evergreen, are expanding their fleets, he mentions, while regional demand appears to be shifting, with Central Asia, Türkiye and India gaining in strategic importance.

Osmo Lahtinen, managing director of O.V. Lahtinen (OVL Container), has seen the US Trump administration’s protectionist trade policy of import tariffs impact his leasing business, notably in terms of the key US-China route in the first months of 2025, although this has been offset, he says, by a 100% rise in Asia-Europe lanes.

OVL is a business that has been operating since 2007. It was set up initially as a container trading company in Finland and is one of the largest. Its core business (since 2013) is providing one-way Shippers Owned Containers (SOC) leasing at a fixed rate, serving diverse clients, such as railway operators, freight forwarders and industrial companies, with the business operating globally, from North Europe to mainland China and North America.

Clearly the tariffs uncertainty is a key issue for shippers and leasing companies alike. Lahtinen mentions that with the pause in tariffs on imports into the US from China, he foresees a peak in container demand that is expected to continue at least throughout the summer months in the northern hemisphere. If this pause continues longer than the announced 90 days (it began on May 14, reducing the ad valorem rate on mainland China imports from 125% to 34%, while suspending all but a 10% rate until August 12) he expects to see steady volume towards the US throughout the year.

Against this backdrop, OVL is investing in a new fleet, and it expects to build at least as many containers in 2025, as it did in 2024. “Our expectation for the rest of this year and into 2026 is that the demand for container leasing will remain steady,” he says, and with this growth there is clearly ample opportunity to spur interest in one-way leasing.

One-way leasing

All three of these market participants would agree that, while conventionally understood as a niche industry in global container shipping, one-way leasing is rapidly becoming an important means for coping with the industry’s myriad problems. So much so, in fact, that experts are describing it as the “next thing” in global shipping, helping it to cope with global supply chain volatility and the mismatch between supply and demand created by stacked empty containers.

Container leasing, generally, provides a vital solution for traders and shippers, without requiring substantial upfront investments, or the other responsibilities of ownership. There is a wide variety on offer too, from standard dry containers to refrigerated and other specialised types of units, according to need.

One-way leasing is essentially based on the simple premise that it enables the users to move a full container load from location-to-location without needing to return them, thus booking the empty container from a one-way leasing company, and the sea freight from a steam ship line. This ‘single-leg’ option is tailor-made and differs from traditional round-trip leasing contracts, but it is neither complex, nor necessarily a high end-price solution that customers might be concerned by. It is also proving to be a very eco-friendly option, in times when sustainability is also now a prerequisite.

As Lahtinen points out, one of the main benefits of one-way leasing is the ability to lease an empty container, with the customer booking the sea freight (excluding the container) from a shipping line. This means that essentially all that the freight forwarder needs to do is book the sea freight as an SOC instead of a Carrier Own Container (COC) and then book the container with a one-way leasing company.

Importantly, forwarders also benefit from one-way leasing, because they might obtain a discount on the sea freight to cover the leasing charge, and they do not have to be concerned with detention fees. This is because the overdue charge (following the fixed lease period) is extremely low compared to what the steam ship lines might charge.

Detention fees can be more than $100 per day, Lahtinen points out. This is part of the reason for the popularity of one-way leasing. “Shippers enjoy flexibility using one-way containers because they can use them for temporary storage as long as they want (within reason of course) due to the pre-determined and fixed daily rate.”

Not only that, but also one-way leasing offers the ability to combine different carriers for one shipment in the case of a transloading requirement – when the cargo is moved from one container to another, or from a conventional truck trailer to a container. The same container can be used, eliminating the need to transload goods from one container to another. “Transloading charges alone can easily cost $1,000 per container,” he says, adding that there is also “the added risk of potentially damaging the cargo.”

One-way leasing, importantly, “adds flexibility, it reduces the cost associated with the empty repositioning of containers, improves asset utilisation, supports trade routes with container imbalances, and is thus considered more sustainable,” Roeloffs points out.

Moreover, while is not a complete replacement for traditional round-trip leasing, it provides a complementary solution, “helping both carriers and forwarders adapt to market imbalances quickly and efficiently,” he says.

As Gnedovs is also keen to elaborate, it is “especially effective in growing corridors like India-to-Europe, or China-to-Central Asia.” It is sustainable in the long term too if it is backed by features such as smart asset tracking, strong client verification, and agile logistics networks, he mentions, while adding that his firm is “combining one-way leasing with optional buy-back and storage solutions to increase flexibility.”

Lahtinen, meanwhile, passionately believes that it would be much better if all containers were one-way SOCs, as they are rarely placed and thereby handled more efficiently. They are “neutral” and can be used on any form of transport, whether it be trucks, railways, or by sea carriage, and they are not in the possession of any single specific steam line, which means they are not subject to only one shipping lines’ cargo.

One-way leasing knits effectively into the demand for sustainability and digitalisation in the modern era, reducing carbon footprints and improving efficiency.

Paperless transactions and digital container tracking are becoming the norm, notes Gnedovs. There is the demand for a better life-cycle transparency of used containers, he says, indicating that the future will be characterised by leasing models with such features as “bundled-in carbon footprint analytics, repositioning offset options and more standardised repair reporting.”

He adds that his firm has begun organising annual container-focused summits in the Baltics, bringing together key logistics and shipping stakeholders across Europe. These types of events are very effective for knowledge-sharing and relationship building, he says, and the hope is that this format can be replicated in other strategic regions (starting with Central Asia, India and China), mainly to create a platform for local market insights and global cooperation.

This, in turn, could well spur growth in the one-way leasing market, which presently accounts for less than 5% of the total market, according to Container xChange.

Valued at approximately $6.4 billion in 2023, the global container leasing market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.5% through to 2030, to $14.6 billion, according to a forecast from Dublin-based Research and Markets, so it seems as if there is considerable scope in future for capitalising on the one-way leasing model.

The backdrop for this is steady growth in the global economy, with world GDP rising by around 3% per annum on average (in real terms) through to 2030, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook projections, released in April. The report depicts real terms growth of around 4.5% for emerging and developing Asia, a similar level to sub-Saharan Africa, with the Middle East and Central Asia region not far behind on 3.7%.

Gnedovs says that high borrowing rates and cautious banks are making leasing capital-intensive, pushing the small players out and favouring hybrid ownership models. The leasing companies are having to adapt with flexible structures, and shippers are increasingly looking for transparent, bundled, value-added services.

Such growth in major trade routes provides ample opportunity for the leasing industry to adapt, and for this type of solution especially.

Combining digital AI-led technology with reliable fleets of green containers and accessible depots without the premium price tags will ultimately bolster one-way leasing, Lahtinen enthuses, not only as the “next practice,” but also the “best practice.”