EBIT surge 600% YoY for major carriers in Q3 2024

COPENHAGEN : The major carriers have reported a combined Q32024 EBIT of $17.06 billion, which is a 600 percent increase year-on-year.

The shipping industry witnessed a remarkable turnaround as major carriers recorded a staggering 600% year-on-year increase in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for Q3 2024. This sharp rise reflects improved market dynamics, operational efficiencies, and strategic cost management across the sector.

The impressive EBIT growth highlights the carriers’ ability to navigate challenges, capitalize on rising freight demand, and optimize network utilization during the quarter. Industry analysts point to increased trade volumes and stabilized freight rates as key drivers behind this exceptional performance.

“The YoY increase is discounting ZIM that reported a one-time non-cash impairment loss of $2.06 billion in Q32023; including this figure would over-inflate Y/Y growth for Q32024. This is on the back of a $6.12 billion EBIT in Q22024,” says the latest update from Sea-Intelligence.

Of the nine reporting carriers, eight have reported an EBIT of over $1 billion, of which three have reported EBIT of over $2 billion, the update added. “COSCO had the highest Q32024 EBIT of $4.71 billion. Even with the highest EBIT, COSCO did not have the highest EBIT/TEU as they also grew their global volumes by 10.8 percent (Fig 1). Their EBIT/TEU of $716/TEU was surpassed by ZIM’s EBIT/TEU of $1,273/TEU. COSCO was followed by ONE ($567/TEU) and Maersk ($446/TEU).”

Given these results, it seems as though the market is in a conflicted state, the update added. “While this is clearly not pandemic level profitability, it is also higher than any normal Q3. It seems as if the current supply chain disruptions have jolted the market enough to drive up freight rates, increase volumes (only partially on Asia-Europe), and substantially increase carrier profitability to a level not seen across the pre-pandemic decade but not enough to increase these figures to the highs seen during 2021-2022.”

French carrier CMA CGM reported a net income of $2.7 billion for the third quarter of 2024 compared to $388 million in the same period last year, driven mainly by the shipping business. Group revenue stood at $15.8 billion in the third quarter of 2024, up 38.5 percent and EBITDA more than doubled to $4.9 billion.