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Hapag-Lloyd container ship in the port of Hamburg
Photo: Georg Wendt/dpa
Hapag-Lloyd's operating profit fell to 2.5 billion euros last year. The group announced this based on preliminary figures. The surplus is a seventh of what Germany's largest container shipping company made as profit in 2022. According to the group, sales at the world's fifth-largest shipping company fell by a good 48 percent to 17.9 billion euros.
The decline is due to the end of the Corona special boom. According to Hapag-Lloyd, freight rates have fallen on average by almost 48 percent to $1,500 per standard container (TEU) as supply chains have normalized. During the pandemic, freight rates in container shipping rose sharply because transport capacities were scarce and supply chains became fragile. This brought the big shipping companies exceptional profits.
For 2023, Hapag-Lloyd now reported roughly constant transport volumes of 11.9 million TEU - in 2022 it was slightly less at 11.8 million. However, the conflict in the Red Sea had a negative impact on year-end shipment volumes as rerouting ships around the Cape of Good Hope extended travel times, the company said.
Like other major shipping companies, Hapag-Lloyd has not sent ships through the Middle East maritime area for weeks after attacks by Houthi militias from Yemen on freighters in the Red Sea, but has instead rerouted them around the southern tip of Africa. The consequences were delays, higher costs and fees. The usual route via the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean is the shortest shipping connection between Southeast Asia and Europe. A good week ago, Hapag-Lloyd announced that it would stick to the diversion until further notice. The development of the security situation is being continuously monitored.
fdi/Reuters