Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), Asia’s biggest container shipping line, posted a fourth consecutive quarterly loss as slumping world trade and overcapacity cut freight rates.
The NT$2.58 billion (US$79 million) net loss in the three months to September compared with a profit of NT$291 million a year earlier. It was worse than six analysts’ median estimate of a NT$286 million loss. The third-quarter figures were derived from the company’s nine-month results announced yesterday.
Third-quarter sales plunged 36 percent to NT$3.61 billion as European and US consumers pared spending and transportation fees declined, the company said in a stock exchange filing yesterday. Revenue from affiliates and subsidiaries is counted separately.
Container lines globally have parked ships and cut sailings as the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression threatens to push the industry to at least US$20 billion of losses this year, Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd said.
“The container-shipping industry is quite weak,” said Peter Tzeng, an analyst at Polaris Securities Co (寶來證) in Taipei. “Global trade may have bottomed, but volumes aren’t improving.”
China Cosco Holdings Co (中國遠洋控股) and Neptune Orient Lines Ltd, Asia’s second and third largest, also reported fourth straight losses last week.
Neptune Orient said that “significant losses” would likely continue through the first half of next year at least.
For the nine months through September, Evergreen posted a loss of NT$7.29 billion, compared with a profit of NT$1.49 billion a year earlier, the company said.
Evergreen fell 2.7 percent to NT$16.20 in Taipei trading yesterday before the earnings announcement.
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