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Hapag-Lloyd saw its net income dip 74.7% y-o-y to USD 791 mn in 1H 2024, according to an earnings release (pdf). The German shipping company’s revenues declined 12.2% to USD 9.5 mn during the same period. “Even though we were unable to match the exceptionally good results of the prior year, we delivered a very good first half of 2024 thanks to strong demand and better spot rates, ” CEO Rolf Habben Jansen said.
There are still some positives: The firm’s liner shipping segment’s transport volumes grew 6% y-o-y to 6.1 mn TEUs, while the terminal and infrastructure’s EBITDA increased to USD 71 mn during the same period, the earnings release added.
The outlook for the order books: The German shipping firm is expecting the global ship order book — which represents 18% of the world’s fleet — to increase. “I expect the 18%, which as such is not worrying, to nudge up a bit, but delivery windows are long and so it does not have to be a problem,” Jansen told Reuters in a separate report.
And Red Sea diversions will continue until year end: The firm plans to continue steering container ships away from the Red Sea through the end of 2024, instead opting to send its vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, Reuters reports in its list of actions and comments by major shipping companies and freight forwarders.
Bad news for the Suez Canal: The shipping company is one of a number of firms that began rerouting their ships away from the Red Sea last winter in light of ongoing attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on shipping traffic. Disruptions in the Red Sea have hit Suez Canal revenues — a major source of FX — hard, with Suez Canal Authority head Osama Rabie noting in July that revenues from the canal had fallen some 23% y-o-y during FY 2023-2024 to USD 7.2 bn.
