Evergreen Marine, Asia's largest container shipping line, only posted a 4.9 per cent first quarter profit increase, blaming higher fuel costs that could not fully offset increased freight rates.
Income was up to T$367 million (US$12 million), or T$0.12 a share, from T$350 million, or NT$0.11 a year earlier, the Taipei company said in a statement.
Bunker has increased 80 per cent in price since January 2007, undermining gains that have been made with higher freight rates, particularly in the Asia-Europe trades.
Evergreen's quarterly revenues were off 15 per cent year on year to T$6.11 billion. Evergreen Marine's profit last year surged 25-fold to T$10.4 billion from NT$412 million a year earlier, reported Bloomberg, quoting a stock exchange filing.
"The external environment has worsened," Evergreen spokeswoman Daphne Tsai told Bloomberg. "The U.S. subprime loan losses have also damped demand."Container Rates
Rates for shipping a container to the US from Asia rose 2.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Containerisation International. On European lanes, rates jumped 33 per cent from a year earlier to $2,054 per TEU, the highest jump since the magazine started tracking rates in 1993.
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