IN Brief:
- ONE will combine its East Asia and South Asia regional headquarters in Singapore from 1 April 2027.
- The new Asia Pacific headquarters will oversee 15 markets under regional head Louis Tang.
- East, West and South Africa will move under Dubai, while London retains Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa.
Ocean Network Express (ONE) will combine its East Asia and South Asia regional headquarters into a single Asia Pacific operation in Singapore from 1 April 2027, while transferring management of most African markets to its Dubai regional headquarters.
The new Asia Pacific regional headquarters will oversee ONE’s business across 15 markets. East Asia functions are currently managed from Hong Kong and South Asia from Singapore. Louis Tang will become Region Head, Asia Pacific when the consolidated structure takes effect.
ONE is making a parallel change in Africa, where East, West and South African markets will be brought under the Dubai regional headquarters. The company’s London operation will continue to manage Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa.
Customer contracts, existing services and day-to-day operations will remain in place during the transition. Local teams will continue to handle customer relationships and operating matters while reporting structures are changed in phases, with further alignment of functions and responsibilities to follow.
Till Ole Barrelet, chief executive officer of Ocean Network Express, said: “Asia Pacific and Africa are important growth regions for ONE. Our regional headquarters sit closest to our customers and our markets, and these changes will enable us to make faster decisions and accelerate growth. They will also support further investments in both regions.”
The consolidation moves more Asian regional decision making into the same city as ONE’s global headquarters. Regional offices sit between global network planning and individual country operations, handling commercial priorities, capacity, service development and responses to local cargo demand. Combining the two Asian structures gives the carrier one management layer across markets that had previously been divided between Hong Kong and Singapore.
The African reorganisation follows a similar operating logic. ONE says its Dubai headquarters already manages much of Africa’s trade with Asia, India and the Middle East. Adding East, West and South Africa to the same regional structure brings management of connected trade corridors closer together, while North African markets remain aligned with Europe and the Mediterranean through London.
The changes come as container demand continues to vary sharply by region. Global container trade reached 17.3 million TEU in July, according to Container Trades Statistics, but growth rates differed substantially between markets. Regional structures therefore have to respond to changing cargo patterns while fitting those decisions into a network of vessels, ports and equipment shared across multiple trades.
Container lines face similar constraints when equipment becomes concentrated in one market while demand grows elsewhere. Empty container repositioning, vessel utilisation and schedule recovery are network decisions, but their commercial effects appear locally. A regional headquarters with responsibility across a wider group of markets can make capacity decisions with a broader view of connected cargo flows.
ONE operates more than 280 vessels with capacity above 2.2 million TEU and serves more than 120 countries. That scale creates dependencies between regions: a routing change, port disruption or capacity decision in one part of Asia can affect vessel schedules and equipment availability elsewhere several weeks later.
The Singapore consolidation does not itself add vessels, services or terminal capacity. Its effect will depend on whether bringing East and South Asia under one management team improves the speed and consistency of decisions across those markets. The carrier has said customers moving cargo between the two Asian regions will be served within a single regional organisation after the change.
The phased implementation is intended to limit operational disruption. Existing teams will remain in their current roles initially, allowing ONE to change reporting structures before completing the wider alignment of regional functions. That avoids a single organisational cutover across 15 Asian markets and multiple African operations at the same time.
Both changes form part of ONE’s 2030 strategy, under which the carrier is pursuing further growth while adjusting its organisation around regional markets. The carrier will enter the new structure on 1 April 2027 with local customer teams intact, leaving the subsequent speed of capacity, investment and commercial decisions as the practical measure of whether consolidation improves regional performance.
