News / APMM floats along on 'solid' Q1 profitability in Ocean, well prepared for choppy water

Despite President Trump’s claim this week that Yemen’s Houthi rebels had “surrendered to the US” and were to cease their attacks on Red Sea shipping, Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said today that a return to Suez Canal transits this year was extremely unlikely.

“There is a strong link between what’s going on in Yemen and what’s going on in Gaza, and therefore, given what we’re seeing every day and the expectation that it’s worsening on the ground in Gaza and that things could worsen even further, going through something as complex, costly and hard to reverse as a complete redeployment of our shipping networks to go back through the Red Sea – based on a news of a deal whose contour we don’t understand, whose terms we don’t understand and which has been breached already – is really, is not responsible,” he said during the carrier’s Q1 earnings call today.

The company today reported first-quarter revenue growth of 7.8%, to $13.3bn, while group EBIT grew to $1.3bn, from $177m a year ago, “driven by solid profitability in Ocean, operational improvements in Logistics & Services and higher volumes in Terminals”.

It said its liner business had reversed last year’s $161m loss to post an EBIT of $743m, “due to higher rates and stable volumes”, although according to today’s Loadstar Premium analysis, its earnings were also significantly buoyed by detention and demurrage fees.

However, Peter Sand, chief analyst at freight rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, said today that a return to Suez Canal transits would “collapse” freight rates, potentially across all trades, because “global teu-mile demand would decrease 6%”.

He explained: “Containerships returning to the Red Sea would flood the market with capacity, with the inevitable outcome of collapsing freight rates. If we also see a continued slowdown in imports into the US due to tariffs, then the collapse will be even harder, and even more dramatic.”

But Mr Clerc remained confident that the carrier, particularly through its Gemini partnership with Hapag-Lloyd, was well prepared to weather the year’s mounting difficulties.

“We are deploying all levers to further improve our operational efficiency, not the least through Gemini, and to give ourselves the agility that we need to handle whatever difficulties might come our way,” he said.

Its Logistics & Services division saw revenue decline 0.5%, to $3.49bn, while EBIT nearly trebled, to $142, as CapEx declined year on year by a roughly similar amount.

“Revenue from freight management services grew 18% compared with the same quarter last year, driven by Project Logistics. Ongoing operational improvements in fulfilment services also contributed significantly,” the company said.

Meanwhile port division APM Terminals saw first-quarter revenue grow 23% year on year, to $1.2bn, and EBIT up 31%, at $394m, following “strong volume growth, higher revenue per move and increased storage revenue, while costs were under control through automation and increased capacity utilisation”.

Mr Clerc said the group was maintaining its full-year 2025 guidance of an underlying EBIT of up to $3bn, while global container market volume growth was revised to between a 1% contraction and 4% growth, due to “increased macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty”.