Like its competitors, the container liner shipping company OOCL, which belongs to the state-owned Chinese Cosco Group, is struggling with changing market conditions. Despite an increase in transport volumes – at least in part – the first quarter saw a loss on the balance sheet.
OOCL recorded a 9% drop in turnover for the first three months of the year compared to the same period in the previous year[ds_preview].
At the end of the quarter, the Cosco subsidiary had generated US$1.98bn. The trade lane with the highest turnover is Transpacific with US$734m. There was also an increase here: 13%. It is followed by Intra-Asia with US$598m, Asia-Europe with US$493m and Transatlantic with US$154m. While there was at least a small increase of 0.8% in the Asia-Europe business, there was a significant drop in the other two regions: by 17.4% for Intra-Asia/Australasia and by as much as 50.6% in the Transatlantic.
OOCL transports more containers
Because the rates did not meet the expectations and hopes of the liner carriers, even a plus in transportation could not prevent the balance sheet minus at OOCL. A total of 1.797 million TEU were shipped(with 2.2% more capacity). This represents an increase of 3.4%. Intra-Asia/Australasia accounted for the largest share with 863,000 TEU and an increase of 11.3%. This was followed by Transpacific with 449,000 TEU and a small increase of 0.7%, as well as Asia-Europe and Transatlantic, both of which recorded a drop of 7.5% to 359,000 TEU and 2.1% to 125,000 TEU respectively.
The average total revenue per TEU fell by 12% compared to the first quarter of the previous year, according to OOCL.
