Freight Rate Data Collection
The data collected from Xeneta’s broad userbase ranges from short-term to long-term rate contracts. The freight rates provided may come in various forms — some users have multiple rate updates per month, others have monthly, quarterly, annual or even two-year fixed agreements.
Minimum Data Requirements
Xeneta gathers millions of rates per month. Before releasing any market information, a minimum of 5 rates per route, per day, per equipment type is required. This defines the basic foundation upon which Xeneta builds stronger benchmarks as additional rates are sourced. Mature trade routes (covered by extensive data collection) are made up of several hundred valid rates per day — making our index reliable and accurate.
Xeneta Geo-Hierarchy Offers Global Data Coverage
The Xeneta Geo-Hierarchy is developed based on common market practices. Ocean freight rates contracted to and from specific areas and ports correlate strongly on price. We use the millions of price points in our database to validate the price correlation and can, as such, offer global data coverage.
In our Geo-Hierarchy approach, we have grouped ports together based on price — not proximity — following the way the industry prices the different connections. Xeneta shows accurate pricing for exact port-to-port connections because the rate data is aggregated based on ports with similar pricing. The areas where ocean freight rate correlation is strongest is in North Europe and the Far East. Xeneta builds these areas up by Main Ports and Sub Ports, while the remaining areas are built up by geographical regions.
Sampling
By sampling from a broad set of companies, Xeneta collects data within a statistical sample to capture tendencies in the statistical population. Utilizing sampling requires a wide selection of sources, which is the basis of Xeneta’s services. The methodology is carefully chosen for quality assurance.
Data Aggregation
Xeneta provides users with key statistical measurements of the market prices sourced. In this way, we can provide easy-to-understand information while at the same time ensuring the anonymity of our users' data.
Our key benchmarking metrics are Market Average, Market High, and Market Low — together giving insight into different parts of the market. The Market Average represents the arithmetic mean of all prices for a trade lane valid on a particular day. The Market Low represents the prices at the 2.5 percentile of the market, and the Market High represents the prices at the 97.5 percentile of the market.
