COSCO Shipping Ports (CSP), the biggest ports operator in the world, has announced a revenue increase increased by 0.7% in the third quarter (Q3) of 2019 compared with the same period last year, despite its gross and net profit falling.
In total CSP made US$254.7 million in revenue in Q3 and $772.6 million in the first nine months of 2019 – an increase of 3.2%. Its net profit, however, fell in the first nine months by 10%.
The fall in 3Q profit came despite a 5.2% increase in throughput, which totaled almost 32.5 million TEU. It also increased in the first nine months of the year by 5.3%.
The biggest driver of CSP’s revenue growth was its ‘Greater China’ region, the throughput of which grew by 3.2%, accounting for 77.8% of the group’s worldwide total.
CSP’s throughput grew across all regions, with the biggest being ‘Southwest Coast’ which increased by 27%. It was followed by ‘Overseas Regions’ which grew by 12.9%, ‘Bohai Rim’, ‘Yangtze River Delta’ and ‘Southeast Coast and Others’ where throughput jumped by 4.4%, 3.1% and 0.5% respectively.
As part of its outlook for the rest of 2019, CSP said it remained committed to building its global terminal network and searching for opportunities to acquire terminals in line with its previously set out growth plans.