Profit increase of around 60 percent thanks to high demand, cheap fuel and lower costs.
A high demand for container transport and cheap fuel brought the Hamburg shipping company Hapag-Lloyd a strong profit jump in the corona year 2020. Because the company also significantly reduced its costs, earnings before interest and taxes (Ebit) rose year-on-year according to preliminary figures by around 60 percent to around 1.3 billion euros, as Hapag-Lloyd announced in Hamburg on Wednesday.
The result was thus in the middle of the target range, which was only increased again at the beginning of December. As CEO Rolf Habben Jansen reported a few weeks ago, the ships were barely enough in autumn to transport the huge amounts of goods to their customers.
Three percent increase in sales
According to the preliminary figures, the transport volume for the year as a whole fell by 1.6 percent to 11.8 million standard containers. However, increased transport prices drove sales up by three percent to 12.8 billion euros.
As a result, and because of the savings in operation and fuel, Hapag-Lloyd was also able to compensate for special charges in the fourth quarter, which, according to the information, were primarily due to an optimization of the freighter fleet.
