Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) has denied that their recent move to join the 2M alliance was inadequate or unstable.
At a meeting with reporters at the Hyundai Group building in Seoul yesterday (December 19 2017) Yoo Chang-keun, CEO of HMM said, “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.”
Lee Sang-shik, Head of Container Planning who was also at the conference commented on the 2M news by saying “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.”
Lee, who was a major part of the 2M Alliance negotiations, went on to say “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”.
Chang-keun also claimed, “Our market share in the west coast of America rose to fifth place this year from 11th place last year”. He went on to add “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”.
HMM also recently announced their intentions to attain a 5% market share by 2021.
