CIMC reports lower earnings in 2015CIMC reports lower earnings in 2015

Net profit for 2015 was recorded at RMB1.97bn ($302.76m), down 20.3% from RMB2.48bn in 2014. The annual revenue also fell by 16.3% year-on-year to RMB58.69bn.

“Among the group’s principal businesses, the revenue of container, road transportation vehicle and logistics service businesses declined; the energy, chemical and liquid food business and the offshore engineering business recorded sharp falls in their revenues due to sluggish industrial environments,” CIMC stated.

The company pointed out that the deteriorating profits of container shipping companies resulted in weakened container purchases from customers.

“In addition, the high container inventory in the industry also needed to be digested. Affected by these, the annual overall capacity across the container manufacturing industry shrunk and the competition pattern of the industry was relatively stable with intensified competition.”

Looking ahead, CIMC cited Clarkson figures predicting the growth of global container trade will pick up in 2016 reaching 4.2% from 2.5% in 2015, but the oversupply of shipping capacity will remain.

“Shipping companies continued to receive big new ships with insufficient utilisation of shipping space in the global shipping industry and are expected to continue implementing strategies such as acquisition and reorganisation, deepening coalition operation and maintaining slow-sailing,” CIMC commented.

“As overseas demand currently remains low; China’s export continues to slow down and the container industry needs time to digest the container stock of previous year, it is expected that the weak demand for containers will continue in 2016.”