U.S. vessel imports rose a slight 1.2 percent in 2012 over the year before. This was a total of over 17.6 million TEUs imported, or roughly 200,000 more containers than in 2011. Slow and steady growth seems to be the consistent pattern for the year as import volume still has not returned to 2007 or 2008 levels. Zepol has seen a large spike from 2009 to 2010 and then a plateau-like trend for the past three years, although 2012 was an especially unique year for U.S. imports.
Zepol Corporation, the leading trade intelligence company,reports that
U.S. import shipment volume for August, measured in TEUs, is down from July by 3 percent and 0.3 percent from August 2011. It's unusual to see a drop in imports from July to August, since the trend for the past three years has been a spike in the month of August. In 2010 and 2011, August was actually the peak month of the year for TEU imports.
