Hapag-Lloyd has published its figures for the first half of 2021 revealing a good performance, with an EBITDA of US4.2bn.
The shipping line’s EBIT rose to US3.5bn and group profit rose to US$3.3bn. Chief executive Rolf Habben Jansen highlighted debt reduction was another positive.
“In a market with very strong demand for container transports, we have benefitted from significantly improved freight rates and look back on a very good first half year,” Jansen.
“Among other things, we were able to reduce our net debt by US1.5bn, although we paid out a significantly higher dividend compared to the prior year.”
Hapag-Lloyd’s revenues increased in the first half of 2021 by approximately 51 per cent year-on-year (yoy), to US10.6bn. This was driven by an average freight rate of 1,612 US$/TEU, which was 46 per cent higher yoy.
Hapag-Lloyd said it expects earnings to remain strong in the second half of the year as high demand in the current congested market environment is leading to a shortage of available weekly transportation capacity.
Although the financial results were welcomed, Jansen said global supply chains were still under significant pressure, a situation that would continue for the foreseeable future.
“We are naturally pleased by this extraordinary financial result. But the bottlenecks in the supply chains continue to cause enormous strains and inefficiencies for all market participants and we have to do our utmost to resolve them jointly as soon as possible,” said Jansen.
“Looking at the market environment today, we however do not believe that the situation will return to normal any time soon – despite all the efforts made and the additional container box capacity that is being injected. We currently expect the market situation only to ease in the first quarter of 2022 at the earliest.”
