Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運) yesterday said it is aiming to raise its annual sales to NT$70 billion (US$2.23 billion) this year, an increase of 4.5 percent from last year.
The nation’s third-largest container shipping company in terms of fleet size is banking on an expansion of the scale of its fleet to make a successful comeback to the US market in May, as it aims to capitalize on the rebound in the US economy.
“We plan to raise the sales proportion of the US lines to between 7 and 8 percent of the total this year,” Wan Hai executive vice president Tommy Hsieh (謝福隆) said at a press conference.
Regional routes in Asia account for 86 percent of the container shipper’s total sales, with the US lines making up only about 5 percent, according to Wan Hai.
However, an absence from the long-haul market has allowed Wan Hai to report relatively strong profitability compared with its domestic peers over the past few years, especially as shipping demand in the US and Europe has been weak.
Better profitability last year also reflected a substantial decline in global oil prices, the company said.
However, in view of recovering demand in the US this year, Wan Hai has decided to return to the market by offering joint services with its peers from next quarter, Hsieh said.
Wan Hai vice president Davis Kao (高國隆) said the company operates 1,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) in monthly capacity on routes from Asia to the US, and is scheduled to increase the amount to 3,700 TEU through the joint service to be launched later this year.
Last year, Wan Hai reported net income of NT$5.25 billion, or earnings per share of NT$2.37, a significant rebound from the previous year’s NT$2.13 billion, or NT$0.96 per share, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Wan Hai’s financial results were better than Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), the nation’s second-largest container shipper, which posted NT$411.37 million in net profit last year, or earnings per share of NT$0.13.
Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), the nation’s largest container shipping company, has yet to release its financial results for the whole of last year. The company posted NT$319.37 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.09, in net profit for the first three quarters of last year, data showed.
Wan Hai said declining global crude oil prices have enabled the company to save NT$1.5 billion in fuel costs since the beginning of this year compared with the same period last year.
Analysts forecast this could help raise the company’s earnings for this quarter by NT$0.6 per share.
Wan Hai shares rose 3.01 percent to close at NT$37.6 yesterday in Taipei trading. The stock has soared 35.5 percent this year.
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