CTS: H1 2026 in Numbers

Thank you.

Hello and welcome to the Lodestar podcast.

I'm your host, Charlotte Goldstone.

We are officially halfway through the year, well, over halfway through the year now, and it has been an extremely eventful few months.

So today we are going to be checking back in with the CEO of Container Trade Statistics, Nigel Pusey, to examine what the H1 numbers tell us about how external factors have influenced the market.

Now, for anyone who doesn't know, CTS is the most comprehensive data set on the market for global container shipping volumes and pricing.

Its data is comprised of 75% contributed member data from the shipping lines themselves and market-driven estimates for the remaining 25%.

They also release monthly reports that really do contextualize the stories that we report on and the external factors in the market.

So a bit later on in the episode, we are going to be joined by the Lodestar's managing editor, Gavin Van Martel, to help give us some further details about what he's been reporting on and how the numbers reflect this.

Then the three of us are going to be dissecting and analyzing the biggest shifts in volumes, pricing and trade lanes over the past six months.

Plus, I'm going to be putting Gavin and Nigel's past predictions to the test from the Q1 podcast that we recorded a few months ago.

So without further ado, let's get into the episode.