JOC Staff | Nov 02, 2011 3:57PM EDT
Revenue at Orient Overseas Container Lines fell 8.3 percent in the third quarter as new capacity helped push average revenue per container down 14 percent from a year ago.
The decline to $1.44 billion, including double-digit drops in major lanes out of Asia, came despite a 6.6 percent year-over-year increase in liftings in the three months ending Sept. 30. But OOCL said loadable capacity soared 13.9 percent in quarter over last year’s third quarter, sending the overall load factor down 5.1 percent.
The Hong Kong-based carrier didn’t detail the capacity figures by lane, but volume and revenue numbers were weakest on the largest east-west trade lanes.
Trans-Pacific volume fell 2.3 percent year-over-year in the quarter and revenue on what historically has been OOCL’s biggest trade lane plunged 19.1 percent to $485.5 million. And the yield, or average revenue per TEU, was down 17.1 percent, according to OOCL figures.
The Asia-Europe lanes were even weaker, with revenue tumbling 23.2 percent year-over-year — and even declining from the sequentially from the second quarter — even though volume grew 12.3 percent year-over-year. The yield fell 31.6 percent from last year, and 7 percent from the second quarter.
Regional business gave OOCL its strongest performance, with intra-Asia and Australasia providing more than a third of the line’s container revenue and more than any other region in the third quarter. The regional revenue grew 8.3 percent in the quarter to $507.8 million, on a 7.6 percent boost in volume.
