News / A 'strong' Q3, claims bullish Maersk chief, as volumes rise but profits sink

Maersk appears to have “broken through some efficiency frontier”, recording a substantive uptick in its Q3 volumes, following consecutive quarters of underperformance.

But CEO Vincent Clerc told investors today that the carrier’s financial performance over the three months to September had been some way off where it had been 12 months earlier, with revenues down 9.5%, to $14.2bn, leading to a 61% drop in EBIT, which hit $1.28bn.

However, he put that in the context of the uncertainty this year, noting that not only was ebit up quarter on quarter, but “all segments showed strong sequential volume progression, while costs were kept under tight control”.

He added: “These efforts paved the way for the strong results, specifically in logistics and services; we’re staying the course, focusing on operational margin improvements on both the previous year and quarter to maintain the streak of good progress in 2025.

“We also registered good underlying and seasonal volume growth, which more than offset the softening observed in North America for ocean this third quarter, which was the first full and clean quarter of the Gemini Cooperation.”

Its ocean division handled just shy of 3.4m feu, compared with the 3.1m feu handled a year earlier, all three of its lanes making gains: east-west, up 9.6%, to 1.58m feu; north-south up 4.4%, to a little under 1.1m feu; and intra-regional up 5.4%, to 716,000 feu.

For the remainder of the year, the carrier said it was expecting volume growth to hover around 4%, citing strong demand from trades outside North American markets.

“When you look at the gains [already made in] Q4, it implies a continuity of the pace, and I would say we are continuing to forecast. for the final quarter. that volume development actually seems still to be pretty strong,” Mr Clerc noted.

Consequently, Maersk has revised its full-year 2025 EBIT guidance to $3bn-$3.5bn, with Mr Clerc indicating that investors could expect results in line with the “high end of the guidance” – but he did stress this “will depend on the last few weeks”.

Pressed on volume developments, following the news that Maersk is investing in a series of new ships as it seeks to reduce the gap between its available capacity and the 7m teu MSC now boasts, the carrier noted that the new tonnage would be coming on gradually.

Mr Clerc responded to questions on the current deployment of capacity, noting it was necessary to meet the demand on headhaul routes, which he said was growing at a rate outpacing the market average: 7% versus 4%.

“You need 7% more capacity to be able to carry this, so I think there is this dichotomy between headhaul growth and average growth, with [headhaul] absorbing a lot more capacity,” he added.

You can read the full results here