Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has seen good revenue and profitability growth in the first nine months of 2024.
The listed port logistics subgroup’s income increased significantly to €1.15 billion ($1.20 billion), compared to €1.06 billion ($1.11 billion) last year.
The operating result (EBIT) climbed by 31.8 per cent to €81.5 million (prior year: €61.8 million), while the year-on-year (YoY) EBIT margin increased by 1.3 percentage points to 7.1 per cent.
The profit after tax and minority interests was €16.3 million ($17.1 million), up from €3.1 million ($3.2 million) the previous year. Earnings per share reached €0.22 ($0.23), prior year: €0.04 ($0.042).
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In the container segment, container handling at HHLA’s container terminals increased compared with the previous year’s performance by 0.9 per cent to 4.49 million TEUs (previous year: 4.45 million TEUs).
With YoY growth of 0.2 per cent to 4.29 million TEUs, container throughput at the Hamburg container terminals was on the previous year’s level (previous year: 4.28 million TEUs).
Whereas foreign traffic volumes in the Far East and Middle East shipping sectors declined, volumes in the North and South America shipping regions increased significantly, notably in the US.
Despite temporary route adjustments caused by armed conflict in the Red Sea, freight volumes to other European seaports continued to climb.
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Container throughput from Lithuania and Germany grew dramatically, while Swedish and Polish trade rebounded.
In contrast, Finnish and Danish freight volumes fell. Feeders handled 19.0 per cent of seaborne cargo (compared to 18.4 per cent the previous year).
International container terminals reported a 20.2 per cent increase in handling volume to 203,000 TEUs (compared to 169,000 TEUs last year).
This was owing to a substantial volume increase at the multi-function terminal HHLA TK Estonia, as well as the restart of seaborne handling at Container Terminal Odessa in Q3 2024.
