The continuing high freight rates and strong long-term partnerships have boosted Maersk’s results during the first quarter of the year according to the company’s CEO, Søren Skou, who stated, “the increased earnings are driven by freight rates and by contracts being signed at higher levels.”
A.P. Moller – Maersk has announced record results for the first three months of the year across its businesses, with revenue increasing by 55% to US$19.3 billion, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) more than doubling to US$9.1 billion and free cash flow growing to US$6 billion.
“In Q1 we delivered the best earnings quarter ever in A.P. Moller – Maersk with growth across Ocean, Logistics and Terminals,” pointed out Skou, who explained, “While global supply chains remain under significant pressure, we continue to demonstrate superior ability to help customers overcome logistic challenges. In Logistics, we enjoyed strong demand for products and solutions across our portfolio leading to the 5th quarter in a row with organic growth of more than 30%, while Terminals presented its best quarter ever.”
In its Ocean sector, Maersk has achieved revenue growth of 64% to US$15.6 billion during Q1, while at the same time revenue in the company’s Logistics sector increased by 41% to US$2.9 billion, compared to the same quarter last year. Additionally, in Maersk’s Terminals sector, revenue increased to US$1.1 billion in Q1, which represents an all-time record.
Maersk noted that freight rates remained elevated in the first three months of 2022 as Covid-19 and capacity shortages continued to disrupt the supply-side of the logistics industry with global container demand declining by 1.2%.
Maersk upgrades full-year outlook after first quarter results
The Danish shipping carrier has already upgraded its underlying EBITDA to around US$30 billion, underlying EBIT to around US$24 billion and free cash flow above US$19 billion for the full year of 2022.
“This is based on a strong first half of 2022 as well as higher contracted rates, while the normalisation in Ocean is still assumed to take place early in the second half of the year,” commented Maersk.
