Growth of trade and economic cooperation on a large scale between Korea and China has been rising recently in the maritime logistics industry.
This paper focused on the effect of the market structure on the market performance of container port in Korea and China. Due to the continuous increasement of the container cargoes, each country's container port market has been growing as well. Moreover, the competition among container terminal operators located in the same port is also growing in order to attract more container cargoes. This paper looked into the market structures, market conducts and market performances of container ports in Korea (Busan, Kwangyang, Incheon) and China(Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo-zhoushan, Guangzhou).
The index which has been most widely used to measure market structure, the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI), is computed by squaring each supplier's market share, then adding the squared shares. The HHI is utilized as two reasons. One is that it gives proportionately greater weight to the market share of the larger suppliers and the other reason is that it takes account of all suppliers in the market.
This paper estimated the market performance as profitability (PCM, ROA), growth (total TEU, rate of the increasement of TEU) and examined the effect of the HHI on the profitability and growth in a container terminal operators in Korea and China.
The major findings of this study is that the market structure has an effect on market performance in Korean container ports (ROA, total TEU) and Chinese container ports (total TEU).
As a result of analysing this study, market structure has an effect on market performance in Korean and Chinese container port, but the power of influence can be changed by market concentration index and various market conduct of companies.