Report: cross-ocean shipment transit times have dropped over the last nine months

Recent maritime shipping trends show a reduction in cross-ocean shipment transit time across all major ocean routes over the last nine months, signaling an ongoing reduction in global demand for goods out of Asia, according to e2open, which operates a connected supply chain SaaS platform.

That analysis is based on data from e2open’s business network, encompassing over 420,000 connected enterprises managing 14 billion transactions and tracking 71 million containers annually. The company analyzes that data to create a quarterly benchmark report called the Ocean Shipping Index.

Results show that as of April 1, the global average total booking-to-receipt time for ocean container shipments declined 12 days from the same quarter last year. Exports from Asia to North America saw the most significant quarterly drop, down 11 days in the last three months and 24 days from the same quarter in 2022.

Exports from Europe to North America decreased by 18 days from Q1 2022, the shortest overall duration in the past eight quarters. From North America to Europe, these journeys were down eight days since the previous quarter and nine days from Q1 2022, pointing to improvements across the entire maritime container shipping workflow.

“With continued uncertainty around available supply for components for manufacturing, raw materials, and agricultural goods, companies are evaluating their supply networks and looking to expand their options worldwide,” Pawan Joshi, executive vice president, products and strategy, for e2open, said in a release. “The global ocean shipping environment continues to have a choppy outlook, but the silver lining in all this is the global trend of decreasing booking-to-receipt times for shipments.”