Orient Overseas Container Line saw its revenue slide 9% in the first quarter, driven by a plunge in rates in the transatlantic trades.
OOCL’s Hong Kong-listed parent said in an operational update that the Chinese-controlled container liner operator earned $1.98bn in revenue in the first three months of 2024, down from $2.18bn a year earlier.
The drop came despite a 3.4% increase in volume after OOCL lifted nearly 1.8m teu of cargo during the period.
That translates into about $1,100 in revenue per teu, a 12% slump from the first quarter of 2023, parent company Orient Overseas International Ltd said in the filing.
The figures show the biggest hit was on the transatlantic trade, where OOIL reported that its liner operator subsidiary earned revenue of $154m, a 50.6% plunge from the same period of last year.
Cargo liftings on the trade lane dipped by only 2.1%.
The company also reported a 17.4% drop in intra-Asia and Australasia revenue, which reached $598m in the first quarter, despite an 11% improvement in cargo volume.
OOCL’s biggest trade, the transpacific, saw its revenue improve by 13% to $734m, while the Asia-to-Europe market brought in $493m, a 0.8% dip.
The company is ultimately controlled by China Cosco Shipping, which also controls Cosco Shipping Lines.
Altogether the Cosco group companies are the third-largest liner operator by fleet capacity, according to Alphaliner.
Parent OOIL reported $1.36bn in profit for 2023, down 86% from the prior year.
It was not alone in suffering a plunge in the bottom line.
As TradeWinds reported earlier on Friday, liner industry veteran John McCown estimates that the container shipping industry delivered its first net loss for the final quarter of last year.
All told, the sector was $700m in the red, compared to $34.7bn in profits for the last three months of 2022.
