Mediterranean Shipping Company
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Shipping, air cargo, rail transport |
| Founded | 1970 Naples, Italy |
| Founder | Gianluigi Aponte |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Gianluigi Aponte (Group Chairman)
Diego Aponte (Group President) Soren Toft (CEO) |
| Services | Container shipping and logistics |
| Revenue | €86.4 billion (2022) |
| €36.2 billion (2022) | |
| Owner | Gianluigi Aponte |
Number of employees | 200,000+ (2025) |
| Website | www |
Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A., branded as MSC, is an international shipping line part of MSC Group. It was founded by Italian entrepreneur Gianluigi Aponte and his wife Rafaela Aponte-Diamant in Italy in 1970. The company is owned by the Aponte-Diamant family with its headquarters in the suburb of Champel, Geneva, Switzerland, since 1978. It is the world's largest container shipping company by both fleet size and cargo capacity, controlling 21.2% of global container capacity as of November 2025.
As of September 2025, MSC operates about 900 cargo vessels with an intake capacity of 7,000,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). MSC subsidiaries operate rail freight transport in Portugal and Spain, cruise ships, and cargo aircraft.
The company is independent and wholly owned by the Aponte-Diamant family under the leadership of Diego Aponte. Diego was appointed president and CEO by his father and company founder Gianluigi in October 2014. In December 2020, Soren Toft became MSC chief executive officer.