Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運) yesterday said it expects sea cargo rates to improve in the second and third quarters from the first quarter, and that rates for long-term contracts would be better than spot rates.
The decline in freight rates has slowed since the Lunar New Year holiday and the rates for some Asian markets have even started to rebound, Wan Hai president Tommy Hsieh (謝福隆) told an investors’ conference.
The shipper expects the US market to return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels this year. Demand in the US market would start to pick up in the third quarter, as most clients are still digesting inventories, Hsieh said.
Photo: CNA
To boost demand during the slow season, the container shipper is offering customized services to attract clients, he said.
“The outlook for the North American market would be clearer later this month after we finish negotiating with some of our large retail clients and sign contracts,” he said.
Despite the downtrend, Wan Hai expects rates of newly signed long-term contracts to be higher than spot rates, as clients would be willing to pay more to secure capacity and ensure stable transportation, he said.
The company’s plans to use its larger vessels for its operations on the east and west coasts of the US, while its medium-sized or small vessels would be deployed in the Asian and Middle Eastern markets, the company said.
Wan Hai yesterday reported its freight rates for four markets — the US, South America, Middle East and India — as well as intra-Asian markets in the fourth quarter last year.
FREIGHT RATES
The rates for the US and South America both fell below US$2,000 per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), compared with their peak of above US$6,000 in the first quarter last year and the fourth quarter of 2021 respectively, corporate data showed.
Meanwhile, the rates for the Middle East and India slid from a peak of about US$3,000 per TEU in the fourth quarter of 2021 to about US$1,000 per TEU in the fourth quarter last year, while intra-Asian rates remained comparatively low, the data showed.
Responding to an investor’s question on whether Wan Hai could report net quarterly losses this year following its net loss of NT$40 million (US$1.31 million) in the fourth quarter of last year, Hsieh said that the company would not provide forecasts.
Asked about the company’s plan to distribute a low cash dividend of NT$5 after posting earnings per share of NT$33, Hsieh said that the company plans to buy new vessels to boost its fuel efficiency and reduce its average fleet age.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li