Chart of the week: Import Ocean TEUs Volume Index – USA Sonar: IOTI.USA
US-bound container bookings, as measured by the Inbound Ocean TEUs Index (IOTI), have been weak this fall compared to the past two years — averaging nearly 11% below 2024 levels as of September. It’s true that 2024 was somewhat hot due to a number of factors that caused shippers to stockpile, but where does this year really stand compared to the last six years, and what can we extract from it economically and from an inland transportation perspective?
It’s a positive sign that IOTI remains well above 2019 levels (orange), averaging more than 30% higher over the year, which also reflects concerns about escalating US-China tensions.
Tariffs rose from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese goods in May 2019, with another round in August — though some were lifted in a subsequent deal. These measures led to a small increase in orders, but did not spark the frenzy of buying seen in recent years.
The pandemic arrived in early 2020 (blue) and created the sharpest increase in container imports in history. Shippers changed their inventory management practices from “just in time” to “just in case” from mid-2020 to approximately the first half of 2022 (green). As consumption of goods decreased, many companies were left with excess inventory to reduce work.
After that, companies cut their orders below storage levels for about a year before resuming imports at a relatively strong pace in late 2023.
The deviation significantly constrained maritime capacity and pushed 40-foot container rates above $7,000 on the trans-Pacific route in the summer of 2024, the highest level since 2022.
The disruptions were severe enough to push some shippers to a “just-in-case” ordering strategy, though nowhere near the extremes of the pandemic era.
As concerns over Middle East conflict eased in late 2024, tariffs became the main driver of import volume volatility in 2025. Erratic execution and temporary shutdowns played havoc with the seasonality of imports, contributing to an unusually early peak in orders in June and July. This was reflected in the increase in spot rates in the middle of the year.
As a result of the initial order, container import demand has decreased to levels more consistent with a slight reduction in inventory rather than restocking. The latest inventory reading from the Logistics Managers Index supports this notion, coming in at 49.5 (a slight contraction) in October.
This suggests that shippers are less concerned about insufficient inventory or being hit with unaffordable tariffs. From the point of view of the shipping market, this reduces the dynamics of both parties.
On the downside, shippers currently see no compelling reason to pick up demand in the near term and may even expect a weaker than usual holiday season.
On the plus side, smaller inventories increase the urgency behind load movement because there is less buffer. An unexpected surge in demand when inventory is low has a more disruptive impact and brings more emotion and urgency to the supply chain. This environment could cause rates to rise quickly, just as they did during the pandemic.
About the weekly chart
The FreightWaves weekly chart is a selected chart from SONAR that provides an interesting data to describe the state of the freight markets. A chart is selected from thousands of potential charts in SONAR to help participants visualize the shipping market in real time. Every week a market expert posts a chart with commentary live on the front page. After that, the weekly chart will be archived on FreightWaves.com for future reference.
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