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The
top 21 container shipping lines collectively
lost a total of US$239 million last year,
which is actually not that bad considering
the market situation.
The
year before these same carriers lost approximately
$5.9 billion.
Certainly
2012 saw a dramatic turnaround, even if
the industry as a whole did not return to
the black.
A
number of individual shipping lines did,
however.
CMA
CGM managed a profit of $989 million, while
Maersk Line came away with earnings of $483
million. Hong Kong's OOCL was another, posting
a profit of $230 million.
Also
rounding out the year in profitable territory
was Wan Hai at $94 million, Hapag Lloyd
at $34 million, SITC at $32 million and
CCNI at $11 million.
Clearly,
it is possible to still produce good results
in a challenging market.
Given
that this year's supply and demand, when
extenuating factors are taken into account,
looks as though it could be quite even -
and therefore will likely leave the industry
in a similar position to last year - there
is no reason for there to be disastrous
losses like what we witnessed in 2009 and
2011.
Of
course the pace of scrapping could slow
and carriers may look to activate more of
their idle tonnage in the coming months,
which would seriously alter the above figures.
But
then again, demand could grow at a greater
rate than three per cent. And in fact Clarkson
Research Services predicts it could reach
as high as 5.8 per cent.
It
is truly difficult to know what will happen
exactly. This is the key difficulty to any
forecast. The future often presents us with
plenty of surprises.
What
we can say, definitively, however is that
the raw data on supply and demand should
not cause too much alarm. There are many
factors that can impact the effect these
numbers will have, even if the estimates
are 100 per cent accurate.
The
key, as is always the case, is how the shipping
lines not only manage their capacity going
forward, but how they conduct themselves
on pricing. Do they go for market share
at any cost? Or do they accept the difficult
market environment and take steps to promote
stability instead?
Once
we have some answers on these two points,
then we can more accurately begin to talk
about what kind of year it is going to be
for the container shipping industry.
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