Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has published its financial and operational results which recorded positive development in the first half of 2021.
Firstly, even though HHLA’s container segment increased slightly by 0.7% compared to the previous year’s first half (H1), the company’s intermodal sector, which includes rail and road transportations, recorded a growth of 16%, mainly driven by rail volumes.
In addition, the German group’s operating result (earnings before interest and taxes – EBIT) had a significant year-on-year increase of 63.2% to US$106.2 million, which was partially attributable to high storage fees as a result of “continued shipping delays at the Port of Hamburg, and the strong increase in container transport volumes.”
During the first six months of 2021, the listed Port Logistics subgroup, which includes the container and the intermodal segments, recorded a strong increase in revenue of 13.2% to US$815.66 million.
Moreover, EBIT of the subgroup represented a spike of 70.4% to US$98.33 million in comparison to the corresponding period the previous year, while the EBIT margin improved to 12%.
In the container segment, the throughput volume from January to June at HHLA’s container terminals increased slightly by 0.7% to approximately 3.37 million TEU.
The three Hamburg container terminals saw a slight increase in the throughput volume of 0.5% with 3.07 million TEU, due to the moderate increase in cargo volumes for Far East services, which offset pandemic-related volume shortfalls in the previous year and the loss of a Far East service in May 2020, according to HHLA’s statement.
On the other hand, there was a moderate decline in feeder traffic, particularly in the Baltic region, while the international container terminals in Odessa and Tallinn recorded an increase in throughput volume of 3.4% to 296,000TEU.
The revenue for the container sector had a yearly increase of 11.4% in the H1 of 2021 to US$475.13 million.
Furthermore, the average revenue per container handled at the quayside rose by 10.6%, due to a modal split with a high proportion of hinterland volumes and a temporary increase in storage fees as a result of ongoing ship delays and the blocking of the Suez Canal in March.
At the same time, in the intermodal segment, container transport increased strongly by 16% to 832,000TEU, with a rail transport growth of 19.3% over the last year’s first half, to 678,000TEU, which was even more significant in the second quarter.
As for road transport, it increased moderately by 3.4% to 155,000TEU, and the revenue was up by 13.3% on the prior-year figure, at US$296.76 million.
However, despite the development from 79.2% to 81.4% in the rail share of HHLA’s total intermodal transportation, average revenue per TEU decreased “as a result of changes to the structure of freight flows.”
HHLA expects a moderate year-on-year increase for its container segment and a significant growth in rail and road sectors, while the German company anticipates a group’s revenue significant increase and its EBIT reaching the range of US$179.5 million to US$208,87 million.
