Profits were up as lower fuel costs saved the day
According to Drewry,out of the 16 carriers in the so-called Top 20 that report financial results, only two (Taiwanese carriers Yang Ming and Wan Hai) were able to improve their sales in the first-half of 2015. A nasty combination of slow demand growth and worsening freight rates meant that these lines together controlling approximately 65% of the worlds containership fleet between them collected just shy of $60 billion in container revenues in the first six months of 2015, down 5% on the same period last year.
Wherever possible Drewry’s research only includes sales from the container divisions of these companies, many of which have other shipping sector and other non-related interests. For good house-keeping sake, whenever relevant local currencies were converted into US dollars using the average exchange rate for the period. Also, results for the three Japanese lines K Line, MOL and NYK refer to the calendar year rather than their fiscal year (April through June) while Hapag-Lloyds results include those of CSAV for 1H14 to enable a better comparison. For the record, Hapag-Lloyds revenue in 1H15 (which included CSAVs contribution) was up by 15% against 1H14 (which didnt include CSAV).
Despite this lacklustre sales performance, the same carriers were able to more than triple their average operating margin, which jumped from 1.7% in 1H14 to 5.6% in 1H15. In dollar terms this means that the operating profit for these 16 carriers rose from $1.1 billion to $3.3 billion.
Source: Drewry
