The Dubai-headquarted terminal operator's consolidated throughput fell 5.7% to 12.8m teu while revenue per teu increased 6.2%, meaning that overall revenues dipped just 1.53% to $1.5bn. The fall in throughput was lead by Asia Pacific and the Indian Subcontinent where a 12.6% drop in throughput to 2.4m teu caused a 17% drop in revenue to $192m.
For the Middle East, Europe and Africa, volumes fell to 9.1m teu, a 4.5% drop that was mostly offset by a focus on higher margin cargoes, leading to a revenue drop of 0.5% to $1bn and a EBITDA increase of 8.1% to $516m.
"Within the region, market conditions in Europe remain unchanged and are challenging. The weakening in Europe continues to be offset by stronger performance in Middle the East and North Africa," chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem said in an earnings call.
"The weaker performance in Asia Pacific and Indian subcontinent is a result of two key factors, firstly market conditions are undoubtedly more challenging, it is well documented that GDP growth in both China and India has slowed during 2013 while the Indian rupee has seen a material devaluation and this has had some impact on our volumes. The second important reason is, with high utilisation in some of our terminals, we have focussed on higher margin cargoes to drive profitability," he continued.
DP World cfo, Yuvraj Narayan went on to explain how the impact of changes in the Indian rupee on day to day operations was minimised, "a large part of our tarrif in india is dollar demoniated, which provides us with a hedge, whereas our expenditure in India is actually rupee denominated, so it is not unfavourable to us on a day-to-day basis."
The Australia and Americas region was alone in improving on last year's results, throughput inched up 0.2% to 1.1m teu, revenues rose 9.9% to $292m and EBITDA rose 29.8% to $100m.
During the first six months of 2013 the company invested $544m in its portfolio, focused on terminals in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, including opening 1m teu of capacity Jebel Ali and continued development at London Gateway ahead of its opening later this year. Capital expenditure remians within the company's guidance of $3.7bn between 2012 and 2014, with plans on schedule to open 10m teu of capacity in the next two years.
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