The third quarter of 2024 has seen significant financial results for major carriers, with a combined EBIT of $17.06 billion, reflecting a 600 per cent year-on-year (Y/Y) increase.
The data comes from Sea-Intelligence’s latest analysis, whose figures exclude ZIM’s one-time non-cash impairment loss of $2.06 billion in Q3 2023 to provide a more accurate comparison.
The latest figures also represent a notable increase from the $6.12 billion EBIT reported in Q2 2024.
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Among the nine reporting carriers, Sea-Inteligence noted that eight recorded EBIT exceeding $1 billion, with three surpassing $2 billion.
COSCO emerged as the top performer with an EBIT of $4.71 billion in Q3 2024. Despite its strong performance, COSCO did not achieve the highest EBIT per TEU due to its 10.8 per cent growth in global volumes.
COSCO’s EBIT per TEU stood at $716, trailing ZIM’s $1,273 per TEU, the highest among the carriers.
Other notable figures included ONE at $567 per TEU and Maersk at $446 per TEU.
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Sea-Intelligence notes how the financial results suggest a mixed market environment. While profitability remains far below the extraordinary levels seen during the pandemic years of 2021-2022, it exceeds pre-pandemic norms.
Supply chain disruptions appear to have played a role in driving up freight rates and increasing volumes, particularly on routes like Asia-Europe, contributing to the carriers’ profitability.
However, the firm observed that while the current market conditions have pushed profitability above typical Q3 levels, these are “not enough to increase these figures to the highs seen during 2021-2022”.
Sea-Intelligence recently found that since 2019 the most reliable carriers in the industry have rarely exceeded 30 per cent of the trade lanes they serve each month, with Maersk topping the composite rankings in 16 per cent of trade lanes and ranking in the top three on 44 per cent of routes.
