Higher Volumes, Better Rates Push Hapag-Lloyd’s Earnings Up
Illustration; Source: Pixabay under CC0 Creative Commons licenseGerman shipping major Hapag-Lloyd said it doubled its operational result in the first nine months, accompanied by an increase in transport volumes and average freight rate.
For the period ended September 30, 2019, Hapag-Lloyd’s earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) jumped to EUR 643 million, compared to EUR 299 million reported in the first nine months of 2018. The group net result surged to EUR 297 million from EUR 13 million seen a year earlier.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) surpassed EUR 1.5 billion, compared to EUR 812 million in the nine-month period of 2018, and includes a positive effect of EUR 341 million caused by the new reporting standards IFRS 16.
After the first nine months of the year, revenues rose to EUR 9.5 billion from EUR 8.5 billion a year before.
Furthermore, Hapag-Lloyd saw an increase of 1.2 percent in its transport volume which landed at 9,011 TTEU, up from 8,900 TTEU reported in the first nine months of 2018, while the average freight rate climbed by 4.2 percent to 1,075 USD/TEU from last year’s 1,032 USD/TEU.
Transport expenses increased by 3.5 percent, in particular due to a slightly higher average bunker consumption price of USD 425 per tonne and a stronger average US dollar exchange rate against the euro.
“Despite geopolitical tensions and trade restrictions, we benefitted from higher transport volumes and better freight rates and also kept a close eye on our costs. And the same holds true for our strategic goal of becoming number one for quality,” Rolf Habben Jansen, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hapag-Lloyd, said.
Looking ahead, Hapag-Lloyd expects an EBITDA in the range of EUR 1.6 to 2 billion and an EBIT in the range of EUR 0.5 to 0.9 billion for the full financial year 2019.
