© Nils Prause
The recent strength in container spot freight rates drove a 480% year-on-year increase in group profit at Hapag-Lloyd in the third quarter, despite its liner shipping operations seeing flat volumes, indicating lost market share.
Revenue in its liner shipping segment rose 25% year on year in Q3, “driven by a significantly higher average freight rate of $1,808 per teu”, compared with $1,413 per teu in the same period last year.
Its third-quarter volumes reached 3.4m, marginally below last year and clearly below the global market – Container Trades Statistics (CTS) recently released Q3 data showed global volumes growing 5% year on year.
However, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen said the period had seen exceptionally high levels of vessel utilisation, which had supported the higher freight prices.
“We delivered a strong third quarter, driven by significantly higher spot rates, robust demand and high-capacity utilisation,” he said.
“At the same time, unit costs still remain under pressure due to geopolitical tensions and operational disruptions,” he added.
The carrier appeared to struggle on some of its core lanes – Asia-Europe volumes declined 5.7%, compared with Q3 25, to 927,000 teu, while its transpacific volumes also contracted, by 2.7%, to 1.2m teu.
Vespucci Maritime founder Lars Jensen noted that these declines were broadly similar to those reported by Hapag-Lloyd’s Gemini partner, Maersk, in its third-quarter results, and suggested it was “plausible that capacity restrictions in the Gemini network are part of the reason for volume declines for both Gemini partners”.
In contrast, its carryings to Africa and on other inter-regional trades grew 12.5%, which is much more in keeping with trends noted by CTS. Hapag-Lloyd also reported a 35.1% increase in the average freight rate for these trades.
Meanwhile, the recent completion of its purchase of 25% of the APM Terminals’ Maasvlakte II facility in Rotterdam, as well as the establishment of Brazilian joint-venture to build and operate a new greenfield terminal in Aracruz, saw its port division – Hanseatic Global Terminals (HGT) – inch closer to its target of operating 30 terminals globally by 2030.
HGT officially now has 27 sites in its terminal portfolio, and reported 51% year-on-year growth in Q3 revenue, to $197m, and saw EBIT grow 280%, to $34m.
Container throughput at the terminals in which it has an interest was up 10%, to just under 4m teu.
And the board has raised the outlook for the group this year, with EBITDA now forecast to be between $4.6bn and $5bn, and group EBIT between $2bn and $2.4bn.
“Against the backdrop of volatile freight rates and persistent geopolitical challenges, the outlook is subject to a considerable degree of uncertainty,” the company said.
It also remained confident that its attempt to purchase Israeli carrier Zim, with partner local private equity fund FIMI, would ultimately prove successful, and added that “outstanding approvals are expected to be granted in the first quarter of 2027”.