Revenue rose to $6.52bn from $6.23bn in 2013, while operating costs rose to just $5.88bn from $5.77bn despite the growth in volume.
Liftings rose by 5.5% in 2014, OOIL said, while revenue improved by 3.5%. Average revenue per teu fell 1.9% from the year before however. Despite the increase in capacity and lifting, operating costs continued to improve, with OOCL achieving a reduction in total bunker cost of 10%, attributable to both decrease in bunker price and consumption.
Seaborne trade growth for the liner industry was better than expected during 2014, OOIL said. "East West trades recorded healthy volume growth while the Intra-Asia trades posted positive but inconsistent growth," it added.
In assessing the market, OOIL said: "In aggregate terms, global demand grew 5.3%, an improvement from 4.0% in 2013. The industry as a whole performed better than that of 2013, though freight rate across trades were mixed."
Meanwhile the Asia-Europe trade saw better-than-expected performance, especially in the earlier part of the year, while the transpacific and intra-Asia trades were more muted, OOIL noted. While carriers faced multiple challenges including port congestion in Asia and Europe, increasing labour and logistics bottleneck in the US, and cascading effects in the transpacific and intra-Asia trades, the industry benefitted from an overall trade volume growth and declining bunker prices during the year, OOIL concluded.
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