A closer look at financial highlights
It is well known that carriers are currently experiencing a boom with sky-rocketing financial results. The Copenhagen-based maritime consultancy Sea-Intelligence has analysed the financial and volume performances of the major carriers in Q3/2021.
Due to record-high freight rates, all global shipping lines saw revenues growing substantially, "with Y/Y revenue growth ranging from +83.9% for Maersk to +274.1% for Wan Hai."
Ebit came out even stronger, since the carriers achieved USD 37.24 billion in operating profit in Q3/2021 alone. Adding this to the operating profit of 42.10 billion in H1/2021, the carriers have made nearly USD 80 billion in operating profit so far this year.
These figures do not include MSC, the currently second largest carrier, which as a privately held company is not required to publish its accounts.
Sea-Intelligence Alan Murphy summed up: "To put this into perspective, the combined 2010 till 2020 operating profit across all quarters was USD 37.86 billion. In short, the industry has doubled its operating profit in three quarters of 2021 compared to the entire period 2010 - 2020. This is an unprecedented level of profitability." (sh)