Hapag-Lloyd’s CEO, Rolf Habben Jansen, has called the container shipping market environment “challenging” despite the ocean carriers’ strong financial results for the first quarter of 2018.
The world’s fifth largest shipping company completed the first quarter of 2018 with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of US$ 262.6 million (EUR 219.4 million), which is an increase compared to the first quarter of the previous year ($162 million (EUR 135.3 million)).
Lars Jensen from consultancy SeaIntelligence recently forecasted the industry’s developments as far into the future as 2025 in his 'Liner Shipping in 2025' Port Technology technical paper
Commenting on the results, Jansen said: “We have had a solid start into the current year, but the market environment is challenging.
“Freight rates have been under pressure, bunker costs and trucking cost in some important markets were up and we faced a weaker US-Dollar, whereas higher transport volumes and synergies supported the result.
“We expect a gradual improvement of the market throughout 2018 – but most of that will only hit the books in the second half of the year.”
