Oslo, Norway - Xeneta, the leading benchmarking and market intelligence big data platform for containerized ocean freight, today announced  that the already negotiated long-term contracted rates for 2016 currently being  uploaded into the Xeneta platform clearly demonstrates the further decline of next year’s long-term rates.   In 2015,  we have seen more and more shippers having the upper hand, finally relishing in  the ability to be choosers and not beggars and start winning the historical  price war. They have been able to evaluate their sourcing strategy taking  advantage of the current downturn, especially on the Asia – Europe trade.  The  Xeneta Platform data chart represents  the huge spread of contracted short-term and long-term prices from many  different companies, all visibly paying a large variety of prices for the same routes.  This clearly indicates the true pricing volatility in the market. 
The  second Xeneta Platform data chart solidifies that looking into 2016, long-term contracts rates are significantly  lower than the past 12 months. This is based on the current tens of thousands  of already negotiated long-term contracts being uploaded into the Xeneta  platform. 
“We  expect to see more of that in 2016 where our long-term rates market  intelligence clearly indicates that these rates are on a clear path down, based  on already contracted rates for the entire next year. We are seeing that the  usual popular routes will continue this rate downfall and are  already  seeing further indication in the Xeneta platform for various other  routes  as the tender season comes to a close,” says Thomas Sørbø, CBDO, Veneta.  To sum  up, global growth will be low, capacity will grow,  volatility and the  price war will continue. 2016 long-term contracts will be rock bottom making  life for all carriers even more difficult than in 2015. As we continue to see  2016 long-term rates pour into the Xeneta platform, we will  be able to  further inform about the future health of the ocean freight   industry.