India_(Commonwealth Union)_ The largest shipping company in the world, Maersk, will more than quadruple its warehouse capacity in India over the course of the next year thanks to its recent acquisition of LF Logistics, according to a top official. Maersk has been working to strengthen its position as a major player in logistics on all fronts. To that goal, it just paid $3.6 billion to purchase Hong Kong-based LF Logistics.
“Maersk, including LF Logistics, will have a total of 19 warehouses with a total footprint of 2.68 million square feet by the end of 2022 (in India),” Ryan Best, Maersk’s regional head of logistics & services for West Central Asia, said in an interview with ET. By the end of 2023, “our goal is to more than quadruple the entire footprint in warehousing to 5.38 million square feet by adding another 14 locations,” he continued.
According to Prem Ramachandran, managing director of LF Logistics in India, Maersk and LF want to increase their warehouse space in India by three times over the next three to four years. According to Best, Maersk has 35 million square feet of storage space worldwide, and LF will add another 29 million. After the acquisition, Maersk will increase its portfolio by 223 warehouses, increasing its total worldwide facility count to 549.
LF is an omnichannel B2C contract logistics provider. Ramachandra stated that this scalability is essential since some of its retail clients are growing “at a rate of 300%”. According to Ramachandra, “On a busy day, we touch 200,000 clients a day (in India), compared to 40,000 on a typical day.” Maersk has a 20-year presence in India. It has 45 inland acceptance depots, 25 sales offices, and regular services to and from 15 of India’s major ports.
