Hapag-Lloyd has announced a €955m profit for the third quarter 2024, up from €263m in the same period last year and €434 in the second quarter this year.

The company revised its earnings forecast again alongside its results, noting the volatile development of freight rates and persistent geopolitical challenges. Group EBIT is now expected to be between €2.2bn and €2.6bn for the year, compared to the prior forecast of €1.2bn to €2.2bn.

The changing figure underlines recent market volatility; as of March 2024, Hapag-Lloyd forecast a year-end result of between €1bn in the red and €1bn in the black.

The average freight rate in the third quarter of $1,612 per teu improved on Q2’s $1,422 per teu and the year-ago period, with volumes also improving on-quarter and on-year to 3.2m teu.

Despite the better performance in the third quarter, results for the first nine months of 2024 are lower than the first three quarters of 2023. An increase in volumes of 407,000 teu to 9.3m teu was met with a $137 drop in the average freight rate, bringing down revenues in the group’s liner segment by 2% to $15.0bn.

Group revenues of $15.3bn were down by $29m, and a profit of $1.8bn compared to $3.4bn in the first nine months of 2023.

The terminal segment maintained its growth trajectory, although comparisons on-year are of limited value as the unit was founded in the second half of 2023.