After five quarters of sharp decline, in the first three months of 2019, the 2024 revenues of the Chinese shipping group COSCO Shipping Holdings Co. returned to growth as they amounted to €48.3 billion yuan ($6.7 billion), up +1.9% on the former last year's quarter. The increase has been generated the +10.5% increase in containerized cargo volumes transported by the fleet, which amounted to 6.03 million TEU, and the increase in the value of freight rates that generated revenues in the Container shipping business segment only equal to 46.5 billion yuan (+1.8%). On increasing volume recorded a higher increase of +4.4% in operating costs stood at 40.5 billion yuan.

In the first quarter of this year, operating profit was state of 8.2 billion yuan, with a decrease of +17.2% on the same period of 2023, with a contribution of 8.2 billion from shipping containerized (-12.0%). Net profit stood at 7.7 billion yuan (-10.5%), of which 6.3 billion yuan (-17.2%) came from from the containerized shipping business.

Of the 6.03 million TEUs transported by the group's fleet in the first quarter of 2024, 1.17 million TEUs were transported on Chinese domestic routes (+24.9%), 2.11 million TEUs on other intra-Asian routes (+14.4%), 1.08 million TEUs on transpacific routes (+9.7%), 959 thousand TEUs on transpacific routes Asia-Europe (-9.2%) and 701 thousand TEUs on other international routes (+12,0%). Revenue increases were recorded in these markets with regard to transpacific services (12.5 billion yuan, +21.2%), Asia-Europe services (€10.4 billion (+6.55 billion) and services Chinese national bonds (2.8 billion, +0.6%), while the revenues from other intra-Asian services (€11.2 billion (-6.9%) and other international services (€6.3 billion, -15.4%).

The group's fleet is operated through the COSCO Shipping Lines Co. and Orient Overseas Container Shipping Lines (OOCL). If in the first quarter of 2024 the latter has transported 1.8 million TEUs, an increase of +3.4% ( of 12 April 2024), during the period the ships of COSCO Shipping Lines transported 4.23 million TEUs (+13%), of which 1.17 million of TEUs handled by Chinese domestic services (+24.9%), 1.25 million TEUs from other intra-Asian services (+16.7%), 630 thousand TEUs from transpacific services (+17.1%), 600 thousand TEUs from services Asia-Europe (-10.1%) and 576 thousand TEUs from other services (+15.7%).

As a reminder, in the first three months of this year, the terminals of COSCO Shipping Ports, which is the division of port activities of the COSCO Shipping Holdings Co. group, handled container traffic of 25.6 million TEUs ( of 29 April 2024).