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Hapag-Lloyd containers in the port of Hamburg
Photo: Fabian Bimmer / REUTERS
Good business in the corona crisis brought the container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd a strong profit jump in the first three quarters.
The bottom line is a surplus of around 530 million euros, around 85 percent more than a year earlier, as the company announced on Friday in Hamburg.
Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) grew by a third to 858 million euros and thus even more than the shipping company had already reported on the basis of preliminary figures.
CEO Rolf Habben Jansen is therefore sticking to his forecast, which was raised in mid-October.
For the full year he continues to expect an EBIT of between 1.1 and 1.3 billion euros.
"In the nine-month period we achieved good results, managed our costs consistently and at the same time benefited from better market conditions in the third quarter," said Habben Jansen.
However, the Covid 19 pandemic with its increasing number of cases worldwide is still associated with high risks for the logistics and supply chains of customers.
World trade is apparently recovering faster than expected
The group is thus holding its own in an extremely unfavorable environment: The World Trade Organization (WTO) is expecting world trade to fall by 13 to 32 percent this year as a result of the corona crisis.
This decline will have "painful consequences for households and businesses".
However, China's rapid recovery is already driving world trade again.
Early indicators such as the container throughput index of the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (RWI) show a positive picture: According to a report by "Deutsche Welle", it has risen to 119.7, an all-time high (click here for the report).
At Hapag-Lloyd, the transport volume from January to September fell by 3.5 percent to 8.7 million standard containers.
However, the company was able to charge higher prices from its customers.
As a result, sales only fell by one percent to just under 9.4 billion euros.
The shipping company also benefited from lower fuel prices.
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beb / dpa
