Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. on Thursday reported third-quarter after-tax profit of New Taiwan Dollars 2.74 billion ($91.69 million).
Yang Ming had lost more than $27 million in the first quarter and $2.25 million in the second.
The Taiwanese container carrier said consolidated revenues for the third quarter totaled NTD 38.86 billion ($1.3 billion), up 2.83% from the same period last year. Volume, however, was down by 10.99% year-over-year to 1.28 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
Yang Ming attributed the volume decline to market uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The company had to timely adapt capacity on east-west trades in response to the market change,” Yang Ming said in Thursday’s earnings release. “However, since mid-August the lockdown restrictions have been gradually lifted following signs that the virus spread might be slowing. In light of this, the inventory buildups across the supply chains in the U.S. and Europe have returned.”
For the first three quarters of 2020, Yang Ming’s consolidated revenues totaled NTD 105.25 billion ($3.53 billion) and it handled 3.66 million TEUs.
“The after-tax profit for the first three quarters improved by 155.68% year-on-year to NTD 1.85 billion ($62.01 million). With the strong improvement in the third quarter, Yang Ming successfully achieved a return to profitability in 2020,” it said.
Yang Ming said the pandemic has “profoundly impacted people’s way of life and consumer behavior, which accelerates the shift to e-commerce, further increases the needs for hygiene products and home improvement materials, including housewares, home office accessories [and] exercise equipment and consequently leads to a rebound in container shipping demand and boosts freight rates.”
The positive trend continues in the fourth quarter, it said.
“Yang Ming has prepared itself to offer the most suitable capacity to meet the needs of respective trade lanes,” it said. “Looking into 2021, analyst firm Alphaliner projected the annual capacity growth at 3% and global throughput growth at 3.3%, suggesting a positive sign for the next year. In spite of this, the outlook of container shipping still remains clouded in uncertainties over the possible comeback of the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S.-China trade conflicts.
“To navigate the challenge, Yang Ming will continue to enhance its business strategies and service quality. Furthermore, the company will set financial stability as its priority goal, in turn, to ensure steady profitability and sustainable customer service in the future,” it said.
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