News / OOCL Q2 25 update: more volume carried, but revenues decline

Photo: © Péter Gudella

Cosco-owned OOCL today reported second-quarter volume and revenue figures which appear to show the Hong Kong-headquartered carrier winning market share over the first half of the year.

Across the first six months, OOCL carried just over 3.9m teu, a 6.8% increase over the first half of 2024.

The latest figures from Container Trade Statistics show global volumes transported in the first five months of 2025 grew 4.3%, year on year, indicating that OOCL has most beaten the market average this year.

However, there was a large disparity between the first and second quarters in OOCL’s results, showing the effect of US tariff announcements, particularly on the transpacific trade, as well as likely front-loading in January in preparation for a possible east coast port strike.

While first-half transpacific volumes were up 8.7% year on year, to just over 1m teu, in the second quarter they dropped 4.3% on 2024. Last year, OOCL’s Q2 volumes represented 53.8% of its first-half volumes, whereas this year they represented 47.4% of H1 volumes.

Meanwhile, volumes on its three other trades – Asia-Europe, transatlantic, and intra-Asia/Australasia – all rose in Q2, by 3.1%, 20.5%, and 7.8% respectively, over the same period the previous year.

But despite the volume gains, it appears OOCL struggled to cope with increased capacity, and posted year-on-year revenue declines on a global basis.

“For the first six months, ended 30 June, liner revenue increased 4.4% and total liftings increased 6.8% over the same period last year,” it said.

“Loadable capacity increased 8%. The overall load factor was 0.9% lower than the same period in 2024. Average revenue per teu decreased 2.2%, compared with the same period last year,” the company added.

The most pronounced Q2 revenue decline was seen on its transpacific services, where earnings dropped 18.3% year on year, to $753m for the three months, compared with the $922m earned on the route in Q2 24.

However, half-year revenues on the transpacific were just 0.5% down on the first half of 2024.

Meanwhile, OOCL’s Asia-Europe services saw second-quarter revenue down 14.7%, year on year, while half-year income was down 6.4% on the first half of 2024, indicating that the recent spot rate strength on the Asia-North Europe trade has yet to show in its accounts.

In contrast, the strong growth in transatlantic volumes were accompanied by a 25.4% increase in revenues on the trade, largely reflecting its stronger freight rate environment – according to the Freightos FBX, transatlantic spot rates from April to June have varied between 25% and 10% higher than last year on the headhaul eastbound route.