News / Maersk expects profit hike on strong demand and Red Sea crisis

Photo: Maersk

AP Møller-Maersk has raised its full-year earnings guidance amid “strong container market demand”.  

The Danish carrier said “on the back of strong third-quarter results combined with strong container market demand and the continuation of the Red Sea situation” it has upped its full-year ebitda forecast to between $11bn and $11.5bn.  

This is up from its previous estimate of between $9bn and $11bn.  

Maersk also raised its predicted ebit to sit between $5.2bn-$5.7bn from $3bn-$5bn. 

Its free cash flow is expected to be “at least” $3bn in 2024, an increase on the $2bn prediction it made in early August.  

This earnings update paints a significantly rosier picture for the carrier than from the start of this year, with expected ebitda now up by some $5bn since its first forecast in May.  

At that point, Maersk’s 2024 outlook for ebitda was between $4bn-$6bn, with ebit between $-2bn to $0bn and free cash flow of at least $-2bn.  

Its new outlook has been based on preliminary unaudited figures for Q3 24. During this period, Maersk reported revenue of $15.8bn, underlying ebitda of $4.8bn and underlying ebit of $3.3bn. 

Further, the outlook for the global container market volume growth for the full year has been revised to “around 6%” from the previous 4%-6%. 

While Maersk has been upping its full-year earnings guidance each quarter, it noted that this was due to the continued effect of the Red Sea crisis.  

It said in May that “oversupply remains a challenge and will eventually prevail, but the impact is delayed”.  

Maersk will publish its full Q3 interim results on 31 October.