NYK reports a net income of JPY 10.2bn ($99.8m) for the quarter to the end of June up from JPY 8.6bn for the same period of 2013.
Revenues showed healthy growth reaching JPY 582bn, a more than 10% increase on the first quarter of last year.
NYK, operating a fleet of 870 vessels of 64m dwt, however warned that the shipping industry environment “remained severe due to the continued slump in freight rates caused by an excess supply of vessels.”
Management said they were responding by striving to further reduce expense levels by rationalising fleet assignments and reducing fuel costs.
NYK reports that although containerised cargo volumes rose overall freight rates declined and blamed the deployment of ultra large container ships, which caused older large vessels to be shifted to other routes and worsen the supply-demand balance.
In the dry bulk trades NYK noted that despite delivery of newbuildings little progress is being made in scrapping older vessels to reduce surplus tonnage. China trade benefited from increase iron ore volumes but coal imports remained flat.
NYK said that tanker cargo volumes were little changed from the previous years, with the VLCC market flat, although the LNG business performing well.
Car shipments increased year on year as a result of continued high demand for Japanese exports to North America, Asia, and other regions
NYK was also upbeat about its cruise operations with both Crystal Cruises and Asuka Cruises seeing increase sales and load factors.
NYK has revised its forecast full year net income to JPY 35bn up from an earlier figure of JPY 33bn.
The company said it was expecting an improvement in the dry bulk business despite continued oversupply of vessels and expected the business environment to remain severe.
“We will strive to increase the freight rate by catching the seasonal increase in [liner] cargo volume which is expected over the summer,” NYK noted.
