JOC Staff | Nov 01, 2012 9:37AM EDT
Major Japanese international freight forwarder Yusen Logistics Co. said that its net profit plunged 24.7 percent in the first half of fiscal 2012, which started on April 1, from a year earlier to $16.81 million on a consolidated basis.
The company’s group operating revenue rose 5.5 percent between April and September from the same six-month period last year to $2.02 billion. The company’s group operating profit tumbled 51.3 percent to $15.44 million.
Yusen Logistics gave no clear explanation why it suffered sharp drops in both operating and net profits in the first half of the current fiscal year despite the revenue growth.
The Tokyo-based company is the logistics arm of Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line), Japan’s largest shipping firm by sales. Yusen Air & Sea Service Co., Ltd. (YAS), the core logistics unit of NYK Line, absorbed NYK Logistics (Japan) Co., Ltd., another logistics subsidiary of NYK Line, and changed its name to Yusen Logistics Co. on Oct.1, 2010.
In the Americas, Yusen Logistics posted group operating revenue of $454.46 million in the April-September period, down 2.0 percent from a year earlier. But the company’s group operating loss in the Americas significantly shrank to $475,000 in the April-September period from $2.49 million a year earlier.
Looking back on the global economic situation in the April-September period, Yusen Logistics said in an earnings release, “There were no signs of a recovery in Europe. A recovery in the United States was slow. In Asia, emerging-market economies such as China and India have slowed.”
On the domestic economic situation in the April-September period, the company said, “The Japanese economy was recovering, but only at a moderate pace, due to the impact of the slowing global economy.”
Yusen Logistics said that although the global logistics market was largely sluggish in the April-September period, with air cargo volume posting a particularly sharp decline, the company managed to maintain roughly the same volume of air cargo it handled a year earlier and increase the volume of sea freight on a year-on-year basis.
Citing the uncertain outlook for the global logistics market, Yusen Logistics revised downward its revenue and profit forecasts for the whole of fiscal 2012, which were announced on July 31.
The company’s new full-year projections are: $4.16 billion in operating revenue, up 7.8 percent from fiscal 2011; $50.00 million in operating profit, down 36.2 percent from fiscal 2011; $27.50 million in net profit, down 12.9 percent from fiscal 2011.
