Chines New Year and Covid-19 cause 4% drop in container volumes
Taiwan-based Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation has reported a 1% revenue decline and 4% drop in container volumes for the first quarter of this year.
Consolidated revenues of Q1 totaled in $1.15bn, a decrease of 1% compared with $1.14bn in the same period of previous year. The overall container volume handled by the line dropped 4% year on year to 1.24m teu.
The first quarter result was impacted by the recognition of loss from part of the group’s subsidiaries, including bulk business. Coupled with the slow resumption of production after Lunar New Year, and the proactive service and space reduction plan instituted by THE Alliance in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, container business earnings were weaker than expected, said Yang Ming.
Under the continued outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, Yang Ming has announced blank sailing plan in Q2 to mitigate the impacts of the crisis. The company forecats reduced revenues due to large scale capacity withdrawals in Q2.
The other members of THE Alliance, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM and Ocean Network Express also decided to modify sailing schedules starting from April till June in response to lower market demand caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
