The company said it was due to demand-related congestion of port and hinterland infrastructures in many places, as well as to a resulting shortage of freely available ships and containers.
“While we remain optimistic for 2021 as a whole, the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the congested supply chains continue to present a huge challenge to all market participants. We will do everything in our power to help normalise this difficult market environment as quickly as possible and make as much capacity available as possible,” said Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd.
While volumes fell, average freight rates were 37.9% higher in Q1 2021 at $1,509 per teu, compared to $1,094 in Q1 2020. The increased freight rates helped revenues to rise to $4,903m from $3,684m in the same quarter last year.
“On the back of the high demand for container transports, we have benefited from better freight rates, especially in the spot market. On top of that, bunker prices have been lower than in 2020. As a result, we concluded the first quarter with a very positive financial result and look back overall on a solid start to the year,” said Habben Jansen.
“We will also double down on our efforts to provide the best possible service quality to our customers – as we know that we can and must still do better on that front – and we will continue to implement our Strategy 2023,” he added.
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