New York-listed Matson has greatly improved its results for the fourth quarter and all of 2020 despite Covid-19 headwinds.
The Hawaii-based owner of 16 boxships under 3,500 teu and a car carrier on Tuesday posted an $85.6m profit for the quarter versus $15.6m in earnings for the same period last year.
Earnings per share (EPS) came in at $1.96, up from $0.36 a year earlier and beating analyst consensus by $0.16.
Revenue totalled $700m, compared to $541m at the same stage in 2019.
For the 12 months ended 31 December, Matson reported a profit of $193m versus $82.7m in earnings a year ago. EPS reached $4.44, compared to $1.91 a year ago.
"Matson capped off a strong year with continued solid performance in the fourth quarter from ocean transportation and logistics despite the ongoing challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic and related economic effects," chief executive Matt Cox said in a statement.
That China service
"Within ocean transportation, our China service saw significant demand for its CLX and CLX+ expedited ocean services and was the primary driver of the increase in consolidated operating income year-over-year for the quarter and the full year."
Cox said Matson saw good supply and demand dynamics in the transpacific trade lane during the fourth quarter.
"We continue to expect largely all of these trends to remain favorable in the first half of 2021 as the pandemic persists," he said.
"As the pandemic subsides with widespread vaccination, we expect some of the supply and demand factors that we are currently benefitting from to remain and continue to drive demand for our CLX and CLX+ services."
Matson's other trade lanes continue to see better demand for food and home improvement goods lead to higher year-over-year volume in Hawaii, Alaska and Guam.
Ocean transportation operating income jumped 507% to $90.3m for the fourth quarter from a year ago, mostly due to higher revenue from the CLX and CLX+ China services.
Matson's earnings, which trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange under ticker symbol MATX, gained 3.2% to close at $73.47 on Tuesday.
