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Visualizing the World’s Busiest Ports

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The World's Busiest Ports

The World’s Busiest Ports

An estimated 90% of world trade is facilitated by maritime shipping, and as trade volumes continue to increase, the world’s busiest ports continue to grow larger and more efficient to meet demand.

In fact, in just the last four years, the median annual volume of the top 50 ports jumped from 5.49 to 5.86 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

Here are the world’s 20 largest ports, using the most recent data from the World Shipping Council:

RankPort NameCountry2016 Volume2012 Volume4-Year Change
1Shanghai🇨🇳 China37.132.5+14%
2Singapore🇸🇬 Singapore30.931.7-2%
3Shenzhen🇨🇳 China24.022.9+5%
4Ningbo-Zhoushan🇨🇳 China21.616.8+28%
5Busan🇰🇷 S. Korea19.917.0+17%
6Hong Kong🇭🇰 China19.823.1-14%
7Guangzhou Harbor🇨🇳 China18.914.7+28%
8Qingdao🇨🇳 China18.014.5+24%
9Jebel Ali🇦🇪 U.A.E.15.713.3+18%
10Tianjin🇨🇳 China14.512.3+18%
11Port Klang🇲🇾 Malaysia13.210.0+32%
12Rotterdam🇳🇱 Netherlands12.411.9+4%
13Kaohsiung🇹🇼 Taiwan10.59.8+7%
14Antwerp🇧🇪 Belgium10.08.6+16%
15Dalian🇨🇳 China9.68.9+8%
16Xiamen🇨🇳 China9.67.2+34%
17Hamburg🇩🇪 Germany8.918.890%
18Los Angeles🇺🇸 U.S.A.8.98.1+10%
19Tanjung Pelepas🇲🇾 Malaysia8.37.7+8%
20Keihin🇯🇵 Japan7.67.9-3%

Volume is measured in millions of TEUs

Only five of the top 20 ports in the world are now located outside of East Asia. The Port of Los Angeles is the only U.S. entrant in the top 20, and only three European ports made the cut.

Today, trade is more likely than ever to flow through the South China Sea.

Ruling the High Seas

From dollar store knick-knacks to nuclear reactor components, China’s manufacturing output is a critical link in the global supply chain. Getting all those products to consumers and companies around the world is big business, and over the past decade, China has emerged as the heavyweight champion of world shipping.

While Danish company, Maersk, is still the largest shipping line, an ever increasing share of the world’s container traffic is moving through Chinese controlled ports. An estimated two-thirds of container traffic now passes through Chinese ports or ports that have received Chinese investment.

New Kids on the Block

While shipping volumes on a global basis continue to rise, not all of that growth has been spread around equally. This is particularly true for established titans of the South China Sea.

At the outset of this millennium, Hong Kong and Singapore were home to the busiest ports in the world. Today, both are facing increased competition from neighboring ports, as well as declining volumes:

south china sea ports

In contrast, the massive Port of Shanghai saw a 71% increase over the last decade, and many other Chinese ports has seen significant growth in volume in recent years.

If China’s One Belt One Road initiatives and investments in global port facilities are any indication, the country’s domination of maritime shipping will only continue to strengthen in the near term.

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.

All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.

RankCompanyYTD Change (%)
1Nvidia90.8
2Meta44.3
3Amazon16.9
4Microsoft12
5Google0.2
6Apple-6.7
7Tesla-28.5

From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.

Nvidia and Meta Lead

Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.

The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.

Apple and Tesla in the Red

Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.

Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.

Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.

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