News / Hapag-Lloyd chief stays bullish despite falling H1 revenue and profit

Photo: Hapag-Lloyd

Hapag-Lloyd saw its revenue and profits battered over the first half of the year.

H1 24 group revenue was down 12% year on year, to $9.5bn, while Ebit plummeted more than 68%, to just $879m.

This compares with the $2.8bn made a year earlier, and sees group profit in the doldrums, at $791m, a near-75% drop on H1 23’s result.

Despite the spiralling results, CEO Rolf Habben Jansen stayed bullish and, delivering what one analyst described to The Loadstar as “the usual jargon”, sought to reassure investors.

He said: “Even though we were unable to match the exceptionally good results of the prior year, we delivered a very good first half of 2024, thanks to strong demand and better spot rates.”

And he added: “In the second half of the year, we will increasingly focus on continued growth and the high quality of our services.”

Homing in on Hapag-Lloyd’s liner shipping performance, a 5% uptick in volumes carried was unable to make up for the obvious dent in the carrier’s H1 numbers, created by the notable dip in freight rates (21%) over the first six months, from $1,761 per teu to $1,391.

Liner Shipping division revenue was down 14%, from $10.9bn to $9.4bn, with Ebit down 66%, to $856m.

Listen to this clip from The Loadstar Podcast to hear director of the Global Shipper’s Forum, James Hookham, explain what shippers want from the upcoming Gemini alliance: