ContainerPulse Liner intelligence
Match the 4-letter prefix on any container to its operator in our liner registry of 200+ carriers.

CMA CGM

SCAC CMDU · Marseille, France · founded 1978 · Ocean Alliance

CMA CGM (legal entity CMA CGM S.A.) is a mega-carrier headquartered in Marseille, France. Founded in 1978, the line has spent 48 years building out its container service network and today operates a fleet of 644 vessels under the SCAC code CMDU. Total operated capacity stands near 3,850,000 TEU, placing the carrier among the recognised operators on its core trade lanes. The company holds intermodal equipment under 6 registered ISO 6346 owner prefixes, which appear on every box it owns or long-term leases.

CMA CGM is most active on the following corridors: Asia-Europe, Transpacific, Transatlantic, Africa, Latin America. Through its membership of the Ocean Alliance, the carrier shares vessel capacity with COSCO Shipping, Evergreen Marine, OOCL on East-West services. Direct customer contact is available via +33 4 88 91 90 00 or the carrier's web portal at cma-cgm.com.

CMA CGM container prefixes

Every intermodal container carries an ISO 6346 owner code — three letters identifying the owner, plus a single category letter (almost always U for freight containers). These four-letter prefixes are the fastest way to identify which carrier controls a given box. CMA CGM has the following registered prefixes recorded in the BIC database. If a container in your possession begins with any of these codes, the box is owned by or leased on long term to CMA CGM.

To track a container under one of these prefixes, contact the carrier directly using the bill-of-lading number or container number. Most ocean carriers expose a public tracking endpoint on their website that accepts either format. CMA CGM publishes its tracking page under the main cma-cgm.com domain.

CMA CGM sample transit times

Indicative point-to-point transit times for services on which CMA CGM appears in rotation. Actual ETAs vary with vessel rotation, port congestion, weather and trans-shipment patterns. We update these figures every quarter against published carrier schedules.

OriginDestinationTransitFrequencyCorridor
Shanghai, China Rotterdam, Netherlands 32 days Daily sailings via 7 services Asia-Europe
Ningbo, China Hamburg, Germany 35 days Multiple weekly Asia-Europe
Shenzhen, China Felixstowe, United Kingdom 30 days Weekly Asia-Europe
Yantian, China Le Havre, France 33 days Weekly Asia-Europe

See all 8 corridors served by CMA CGM →

How to track a CMA CGM container

Tracking a CMA CGM container starts with confirming the prefix. Look at the container's left-hand corner casting plate or the painted code on the door — the four-letter ISO 6346 owner code (e.g. CMAU) is followed by six numeric digits and a single check digit. If the prefix matches one in the list above, the box is on a CMA CGM bill of lading. Visit cma-cgm.com, navigate to the carrier's tracking or "track and trace" portal, and paste the full container number. The portal will return current vessel position, the next scheduled port call, the estimated time of arrival (ETA) and the most recent equipment events such as gate-in, loaded, discharged and gate-out.

If the carrier portal does not return a result, the most likely causes are: the container has not yet been gate-in at the origin terminal, the bill of lading number is in a different format (check whether the system expects an MBL versus an HBL), or the box is moving on a partner alliance vessel rather than a CMA CGM hull. In the last case, the prefix still resolves to CMA CGM as equipment owner but the schedule data lives with the operating carrier. CMA CGM's customer service can normally cross-reference the booking and route you to the correct alliance partner. Reach the carrier on +33 4 88 91 90 00 during European business hours.

Related ocean carriers

Operators most often compared with CMA CGM on overlapping trade lanes: