Annual Report 2023
716 vessels survived Red Sea closure via Cape rerouting. When an artery closes, you need backup routes—Maersk's $55.4B circulatory system had them.
When Houthi missiles closed the Red Sea in late 2023, Maersk didn't collapse—it rerouted 716 vessels around Africa, adding 10 days per journey while maintaining 58% schedule reliability (the industry's highest). This resilience mirrors how vertebrate circulatory systems survive arterial blockages through redundant pathways—the Circle of Willis in the human brain provides backup blood flow if one artery fails. Maersk's $55.4 billion operation demonstrates resource-allocation at planetary scale: 100,000 employees in 130 countries, 53 terminals in 28 countries, all coordinating to move goods from source (factories) to sink (consumers) across every major trade lane. The Red Sea crisis revealed both the system's vulnerability—capacity dropped 15-20% and freight rates tripled—and its redundancy: the Cape of Good Hope route absorbed what should have been catastrophic disruption. Like a closed circulatory system that enables precise pressure control, Maersk's integrated logistics model (ocean, terminals, warehousing) allows fine-grained resource distribution that fragmented competitors cannot match.
Key Findings from Møller-Mærsk (2024)
- $55.4 billion revenue in 2024, up from $51 billion in 2023—third-best financial year in company history
- 716 vessels (305 owned, 411 chartered) operating across 130+ countries
- Red Sea crisis: 15-20% capacity loss industry-wide, freight rates tripled on Asia-Europe routes
- Cape of Good Hope rerouting added 10 days transit time and 6% additional vessel capacity
- 58% schedule reliability—highest among global ocean carriers