Hamburg Süd: 2012 not good enough, market balance in 2015

For the German operator's liner arm, traffic volume grew to 3.3m teu, a 4% rise on 2011 and just above overall market growth levels while revenues rose disproportionately by 16% up to EUR 4.8bn ($6.3bn), owing to a strong US dollar. The results were ahead of the company's forecasts, but Hamburg Süd refrained from calling them satisfactory.

Süd was pleased with the performance of its Europe-America and Far East services as well as some Inter-America services but disappointed with its Mediterranean operations, and some Pacific services. Mediterranean services were restructured in 2012 with larger tonnage, but an overall decrease in capacity.

Forecasting a 6% growth in global shipment volumes in 2013 and a 7% rise in slot capacity over the same period, Hamburg Süd sees no short term recovery for the container trade, "with a moderately positive development of the global economy, an equalisation of capacity and cargo volume can be expected in 2015 at the earliest. The prerequisite for this, however, is the absence of any sizeable ship newbuilding order activity." it said.

At 31st December 2012, Hamburg Süd's operated fleet stood at 153 vessels, 42 of them owned by the group. Liner ships accounted for 104 of those vessels and despite a year on year decrease of three ships, slot capacity grew 9% to around 430,000 teu.