Xeneta adds airfreight benchmarking

The crowd-sourced ocean freight rate benchmarking and analytics platform says it is responding to customer demand for similar airfreight rate intelligence tools, with a full launch planned for second quarter 2018.    The real-time crowd-sourced ocean freight rate benchmarking provider Xeneta is adding airfreight rate intelligence tools to its platform, the company said Thursday.
   Xeneta, which launched in 2012, allows users to benchmark their rates against more than 35 million contracted rates, covering more than 160,000 port-to-port pairings from 700 shippers.
   The company said it has added airfreight benchmarking and analytics at the behest of its own customers, as well as prospective users.
   “There is a clear market demand for a benchmarking tool enabling the industry to get optimal value from air freight rate negotiations,” said Xeneta CEO Patrik Berglund. “The sector is equally, if not even more, unpredictable than that of ocean freight rates, with prices currently sky rocketing due to lack of capacity and increasing e-commerce demand, amongst other factors. This impacts upon bottom lines for all stakeholders – from shippers to freight forwarders and carriers – as well as the reliability of their cargo supply chain.”
   Berglund said that “by providing greater real-time intelligence, understanding and visibility, we can help the market tackle this issue head on.”
   Xeneta’s airfreight platform is currently under development, with a full launch scheduled for the second quarter of 2018. It will operate with the same data collection model as the ocean service, with similar functionality, enabling users to see market average, high and low rates for spot and long-term air freight contracts on an origin–destination basis.
   “We’re already collecting rates from our established user base, and seeking more early adopters to help expand data collection,” Berglund said. “We’re adding over two million contracted rates monthly for ocean shipping and we’ll be looking to more than double our overall rate density for both modes of transports collectively in 2018.
   “We see this a natural move – both for our business and for existing and new customers – building on our unique proposition within the supply chain and logistics sector and delivering powerful benefits.”
   Xeneta, which has offices in Oslo, Hamburg and Boston, also recently added refrigerated ocean freight rates to its platform.
   American Shipper profiled Xeneta in its October 2016 issue cover story.