OOCL Q1 volumes up 4%, but revenues plunge 17% plunge to $1.1bn

Total revenue however fell 17.1% to $1.11bn as turnover slid across all sectors, led by a 37% plunge in Asia-Europe revenues to just $176.3m for the entire first three months of the year.

The market situation remains tough for lines such as OOCL, as with new, bigger ships coming online, and a corresponding  increase of 6.3% in loadable capacity, the overall load factor dropped 1.7% while with weak freight rates, the overall average revenue per teu decreased by 20.4% year-on-year.

The biggest gains seem to be in the transatlantic sector, with an 11% gain in volumes and a small 3% fall in revenue. However these are from very low bases of just 87,505 teu to 96,943 teu and $136.7m to $133.1m respectively.

Asia-Europe, expectedly, remains deeply troubled with a revenue plunge of more than a third being compounded by further falls in volumes of 11% to not even a quarter of a million boxes. Meanwhile, Transpacific continues to bring in the raw numbers with a 12% rise in volume to 327,657 teu but on rate weakness, and intra-Asia, which still makes up the bulk of OOCL's boxes rose 5% to 735,835 teu but saw revenue weaken significantly by 14% to $403.8m.