Record profits for Cosco Shipping Holding which has closed the first half of 2021 with $21.5 billion in revenue and a net profit of $5.7 billion, up 90% and 32% year-on-year respectively.
This is a remarkable performance for a giant like Cosco, which manages the world’s third largest fleet of containerships.
According to the figures supplied by Container Trade Statistics, containerized volumes handled by the company between January and June increased by 13.5% to 13.84 million TEUs. Demand from the USA contributed almost half of the overall growth.
In the transpacific trade Cosco handled 2.6 million TEUs, 19% of the total. The increase over the same period last year was 23.2%.
However, the driving force behind COSCO’s profit growth was rising prices, not higher volumes.
The China Containerized Freight Index averaged 2066.64 points during the first six months of the year, up 133.9% on last year and 92.4% higher than the second half of 2020.
Translation by Giles Foster
