Transpacific Surge Lifts OOCL First-Half Liner Revenue to $4.68bn
Orient Overseas (International) Limited (OOIL), the Bermuda-incorporated container transport and logistics group headquartered in Hong Kong, has posted a solid first-half performance for its OOCL liner business. As a wholly owned member of the China COSCO SHIPPING group — the world’s fourth-largest container carrier with 3.64m TEU of operated capacity — OOCL continues to anchor one of the industry’s most significant liner networks.
For the six months to 30 June 2026, OOCL lifted liner revenue 5.5% to $4.68bn, as cargo volumes climbed 5.2% to 4.13m TEU. Loadable capacity expanded 5.3% over the same period. The overall load factor eased 0.1 percentage points, while average liner revenue per TEU edged up 0.2% — a broadly stable picture that masked a sharp swing in momentum between the two quarters.
The first quarter proved challenging. Liner revenue fell 7.6% to $2.14bn despite a 1.7% rise in volumes, reflecting the soft rate environment that opened the year.
The second quarter told a very different story. Revenue surged 19.8% to $2.54bn, with liftings up 8.8% to 2.14m TEU. Capacity grew by 6.3%, the load factor increased by 1.9 percentage points, and average revenue per TEU jumped by 10.1%. The rebound restored pricing power and reversed the first-quarter decline in a single reporting period.
Transpacific Leads the Recovery
The transpacific trade drove much of the turnaround. In the second quarter, transpacific liftings rose 21.5% to 608,979 TEU, while revenue from the lane climbed 29.3% to $973.7m — a clear signal of renewed demand and firmer rates across the Pacific.
Across the full first half, transpacific volumes increased 7.1% to 1.13m TEU, and revenue rose 4.3% to $1.72bn, keeping the trade at the center of OOCL’s growth story.
Performance across OOCL’s remaining core lanes rounded out a resilient half:
- Asia–Europe: Liftings grew 9.3% to 771,406 TEU, with revenue up 5.8% to more than $1bn.
- Intra-Asia and Australasia: The carrier’s largest trade grouping by volume handled 1.94m TEU, up 3.4%, while revenue advanced 8.7% to $1.6bn.
- Transatlantic: The only lane to record lower first-half revenue, down 2.7% to $354.5m, though liftings edged up 0.3% to 284,377 TEU.
For freight forwarders managing multi-lane portfolios, these figures underline where capacity and rate strength are concentrated in 2026. The intra-Asia and Australasia network remains the volume backbone, while the transpacific and Asia-Europe corridors offer the clearest evidence of firming demand — useful signals when negotiating allocations and building cost-effective routing strategies for diverse client bases.
What It Means for the Trade
OOCL’s first-half results demonstrate how quickly momentum can shift within a single financial period, with a weak opening quarter giving way to a strong second-quarter recovery led by the transpacific. Backed by the scale and reach of the COSCO SHIPPING group, OOCL enters the second half positioned to build on that recovery across its principal East-West and intra-regional trades.
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