NYK Line, Japan's biggest marine transport company, has hedged its bets by choosing three leading online trade management portals - Inttra, GT Nexus and CargoSmart - to manage transactions for its global shipping network.
For Inttra, formed in 2000 by six European shipping lines, the addition of NYK heralds its first Asian partner. For GT Nexus, the carrier's inclusion means the software solutions provider now boasts Japan's top three shipping lines as network participants.
CargoSmart, the Internet portal financed and developed by Hong Kong's Orient Overseas Container Line, sees NYK join Coscon - the container shipping arm of China Ocean Shipping (Group) - and Malaysian flag carrier Misc as members. However, industry experts said NYK's decision to go with multiple service providers was evidence major carriers were increasingly reluctant to put all their boxes in one basket at this early stage in the industry's evolution.
Steve Siu, chief executive for CargoSmart, said: 'As the first carrier to join multiple portals, NYK is taking the lead and changing the [industry's] landscape. That landscape will shift considerably this year as carriers opt to join multiple systems.'
CargoSmart, launched in October 2000, belied the perception it was an also-ran industry by revealing it now managed more than 200,000 daily shipment activities through its system. Mr Siu said more than 2,000 companies regularly used the portal.
Inttra, which started taking bookings in July, prefers to state business levels in bookings - 160,000 to date - while GT Nexus said no meaningful numerical comparisons could be made precisely because each company measured, or disclosed, trade transactions differently.
