Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) has recorded a huge increase of 125.3% to $4.31 billion in revenue through the third quarter of 2021, despite experiencing problems with congestion around the network.
“This record result was achieved despite severe congestion around the network, which drove down liftings by 7.2% and loadable capacity by 7.6%,” revealed OOCL in a statement.
Despite this, the load factor was still 0.4% higher compared to the same period in 2020. Additionally, the overall average revenue per TEU increased by 142.7%.
For the period Q1 to Q3, with Q3 2021 coming to an end on 30 September, total revenues recorded growth of 114.4%, while also seeing a total lifting increase of 9.6% compared to the same period the previous year.
The impact of growing congestion, especially in the southern Californian ports, can be seen in the findings for liftings. During the third quarter, Trans-Pacific volume took a sharp decline of 16.4%, compared to 2020, to 489,935 TEU, while Trans-Atlantic volume saw the largest reduction with a decline of 20.3% to 112,814 TEU.
Only the Asia-Europe service reported an increase in volume during this third quarter, growing 6.1% to 415,180 TEU.
This has made Trans-Atlantic volume through Q1 to Q3 2021 fall by 7.3% to 366,121 TEU. However, all other volumes have managed to keep a steady increase over this period.
OOCL is the first carrier to reveal its third-quarter performance. However, HMM has reported increased container handling volumes to 1.9 million TEU in the first half of 2021, an increase of 8.4% compared to the first half of 2020.
