COSCO Shipping stores 2021 with financial results and record operating results

In the annual financial year 2021 revenues amounted to 333.7 billion yuan (52.5 billion), with a firm increase of 94.8% percent on the previous financial year, of which 327.9 billion yuan generated by the shipping business containerized of the group (+ 97.5%)-including 212.9 billion (+ 99.8%) arising from COSCO Shipping Lines that is the group's leading shipping company-and 7.9 billion yuan from terminalistic activities (+ 13.2%).

Relative to the revenues generated by containerized shipping services on the world's main routes, in 2021 the revenues of the transpacified services stood at 85.6 billion yuan (+ 75.8%), those of the Asia-Europe services at 93.5 billion (+ 171.0%), intra-Asian services revenues and with Australia at 73.1 billion yuan (+ 78.5%), the revenues of the other international maritime services to 46.6 billion (+ 106.9%) and revenues from China's domestic services to 13.1 billion of yuan (+ 7.5%).

As for operating costs, last year globally totalled 193.6 billion yuan (+ 31.6%), of which 112.1 billion generated from the cost of equipment and the handling of cargoes (+ 37.8%), 32.5 billion of charges generated by travel of fleet vessels (+ 14.0%), 29.0 billion in costs for fleet management (+ 13.6%) and 15.5 billion of other costs (+ 93.8%).

In 2021, the group's operating profit was 128.3 billion yuan (+ 723.8%), with an input of 126.7 billion from shipping containerized (+ 813.0%) and 1.7 billion from terminalismal activities (+ 12.5%). COSCO Shipping archived the last annual financial year with a record net profit of 103.8 billion yuan (+ 687.5%), with a contribution of 107.0 billion from container shipping business (+ 790.6%) and 2.6 billion from assets terminalistics (+ 1.6%).

The volumes of containerized cargo carried by the group's fleet last year also reached a new record level of 26.9 million teu, with a modest progression of 2.2% percent on 2020. On the transpacified routes alone, 5.0 million teu (+ 0.3%) were transported, on the Asia-Europe routes 5.1 million teu (+ 4.2%), on intra-Asian ones and with Australia 8.5 million teu (+ 2.5%), on the other international shipping routes 2.8 millions of teu (+ 15.7%) and on Chinese domestic routes 5.2 million teu (-4.5%). In 2021 the only container ships of COSCO Shipping Lines carried a total of 19.3 million teu (+ 2.3%).

After the -6.7% percent drop in containerized volumes carried by the Chinese group's fleet in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, in the last quarter of 2021 the decrease was accentuated as the volumes transported amounted to less than 6.5 million teu, with a reduction of -12.8% on the October-December period of 2020. In the fourth quarter of last year alone the transpacified routes were transported 1.1 million teu (-22.8%), on the Asia-Europe routes 1.2 million teu (-8.2%), intra-Asian ones, and Australia 2.1 million teu (-13.1%), on the other international shipping routes 705mila teu (+ 5.1%) and on China's domestic routes 1.3 million teu (-14.8%). The sole fleet of COSCO Shipping Lines has carried a total of 4.6 million teu (-11.1%).

In the last quarter of 2021, revenues reached a record share of 102.2 billion yuan (+ 96.7%), of which 100.7 billion was generated by the container fleet (+ 99.6%). Operating costs grew by 23.1% percent to 140.9 billion yuan. Operating profit was 93.0 billion yuan (+ 1,446.3%), a value representing the new record for this period of the year, with a contribution of 92.8 billion from shipping containerized (+ 1,291.1%), and net profit totaled 78.8. billion yuan (+ 1,310.5%), also this record value relatively to the fourth quarter of the year, of which 79.8 billion is from container shipping activities (+ 1,609.1%).