This is an interesting question. Let's see if we can visualize this a bit better.

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Let's take the case when we want to extract the maximum amount of heat from a given
hot stream. What design should we adopt? The figure below depicts heat exchanger
schematics and the temperature profiles for both cocurrent (or parallel) and countercurrent
designs:

Hence, in a cocurrent design, the temperature of the cold stream outlet, Tc,out is always
lesser than that of the hot stream outlet, Th,out. Therefore, the heat transfer is restricted by
the cold stream's outlet temperature, Tc,out.
On the other hand, in a countercurrent design, the restriction is relaxed and Tc,out can exceed

Th,out. Hence in this design, the heat transfer is restricted by the cold stream's inlet
temperature, Tc,in.
Therefore, to achieve greater heat recovery, a countercurrent design is preferred to that
of a cocurrent design.
However, there are some special cases where a cocurrent exchanger design might still be
adopted. Some of these are:

Maximum cold fluid temperature - If we want to ensure that the temperature of

the cold fluid never exceeds a particular temperature, then cocurrent exchanger
designs are advantageous due to their inbuilt restriction to this effect.

Fast heat transfer - Let's inspect the temperatures at location A. The temperature
difference between the hot and cold streams at this location is very large in the
cocurrent design. In fact, it's the largest possible temperature difference achievable!
Since the heat transfer rate is directly proportional to the temperature difference, the
heat transfer rate will also be maximum here. Therefore, to achieve fast heat transfer
away from thermal equilibrium conditions, parallel flow configurations will
perform better.

Isothermal heat transfer - Suppose one of the two interacting fluids is undergoing a
phase change due to the heat transfer (e.g. condensation of saturated steam), then both
designs are identical. In this case, there is no change in temperature for one of the
two streams and hence, no difference in the performance between configurations.

Structural factors - Sometimes, the equipment structure is such that it's

impossible to prevent parallel flow. For instance, in the 1-2 shell-and-tube heat
exchanger design shown below, parallel flow arises unavoidably. Hence, even if a
countercurrent heat exchanger is more efficient, cocurrent flow situations often arise
and require consideration.