The e-commerce fuelled boom in US domestic air traffic appears to be over. This could have profound implications for the domestic air express business and the need for aircraft capacity in a market that is home to 43% of the world’s freighter fleet. Historically, there has been a strong correlation between growth in online shopping, overall economic growth and traffic moving through US domestic air express, e-commerce and general cargo networks. However, since late 2022 this relationship seems to have broken down – the market declined by 11% when the underlying fundamentals should have led to moderate growth in 2023 and acceleration in 2024.This article digs deeper into the data and provides an explanation as to what is happening.
Posts tagged as “USA”
Global semiconductor sales dropped about 8% in 2023 but are expected to recover in 2024. As integrated circuits are found in most key products, this underlines the likelihood of a recovery of world trade in 2024. However, trade flows are likely to change over the coming years as China, the US and Europe build up own capacity and support the development of new fabs in South and Southeast Asia. Machinery trade indicates an emerging shift away from Taiwan and Korea based production of integrated chip production.
The decline in US air trade with China is being compensated by cross border e-commerce. After declining 11% in 2022, cross border e-commerce volumes have grown 55% in 2023 and are now 38% higher than in 2021. This increase is evident in South China and Hong Kong air cargo traffic into the US.
Mexican trade has shown healthy growth this year, with export value up 7% and imports 6% for the first half of the year. Both import and export growth has been primarily driven by the automotive sectors as well as industrial equipment and parts. Data indicates that Mexico is benefiting from tensions between the US and China, particularly in relation to automotive imports and exports.
PRC (including Hong Kong), USA, Germany, and the UAE today account for about 56% of import and 40% of export value. The importance of China as a source of imports and the US as a source of exports has increased. On a commodity level, Indian exports have diversified away from apparel and footwear towards industrial equipment and parts and mobile phones and communication equipment. The import side has seen an increase in the importance of semiconductors and related equipment. Pharmaceutical and automotive exports have grown, but their share of total trade value has stayed constant.
The overall outlook for world trade in 2023 is nothing to get excited about, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Short- and medium-term growth of both exports from and imports into Southeast and South Asia are expected to do well, including to and from Indonesia, India, Turkey, Singapore, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia. The US and China may continue to drag down overall world trade growth, which is expected to be around 1.5-1.7% in 2023 and 3.2% in 2024.