The Container Market in Baltic Ports: Market Share Development and Trend Forecasting

This study examines the evolution of container throughput and competitive market-share dynamics in the three principal Baltic container ports—Klaipeda, Riga, and Tallinn—during the period 2005–2024 and provides baseline forecasts to 2030. The proposed analytical framework combines descriptive statistical analysis, normalized market-share assessment, growth-rate analysis, and ordinary least-squares trend estimation with prediction intervals to distinguish aggregate market fluctuations from port-specific competitive realignments. The results indicate increasing market concentration in Klaipeda, a gradual decline in Riga’s relative position, and long-term stagnation and volatility in Tallinn. Common regional shocks are observed during the 2009 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 disruption in 2020, while atypical positive deviations in Klaipeda suggest competitive redistribution effects associated with changes in regional logistics flows and shipping-network configurations. Forecast results indicate continued medium-term growth in Klaipeda and Riga, whereas Tallinn demonstrates weaker trend stability and greater forecast uncertainty. The study contributes a transparent and reproducible baseline decision-support framework that can be implemented using routinely available throughput statistics for medium-term infrastructure assessment and capacity evaluation, infrastructure prioritisation, and risk monitoring. The findings also highlight the limitations of deterministic linear forecasting in volatile port systems and support future integration with higher-frequency operational data and machine-learning forecasting approaches.