Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation (Yang Ming) held its 356th Board Meeting on March 25th, 2021 to approve its 2020 annual financial report. The consolidated revenues increased 1.4% to $5.11bn in 2020. Business volumes were 5.07m TEUs. Yang Ming’s profit after-tax reached $0.4bn.
After the initial downturn in the upper half of 2020, the container shipping market saw a boost in demand since mid-August. The rebound was supported by the change in consumer behaviour during the Covid-19 lockdown, including the accelerated adoption of e-commerce, and the increased needs for hygiene products, housewares and work-from-home essentials. Due to sudden inventory build-up, the surge in demand resulted in a global shortage of empty containers and capacity constraints, which led to the increase in freight rates on East-West and intra-Asia trade routes. The upward trend continued in the last quarter of 2020.
Yang Ming has taken delivery of a total of six 2,800 TEU self-owned new vessels and three 11,000 TEU chartered-in vessels in 2020. These additions were put into services to further facilitate demand growth and bring greater operational efficiency.
Driven by higher freight rates and relatively low bunker fuel prices, despite a 6.63 % year-on-year decline in business volume, Yang Ming gained 1.4% of revenues last year, indicating a robust growth in profit after-tax in 2020. With the strong business performance, Yang Ming has strengthened its financial status and successfully eliminated accumulated deficit by the end of 2020.
Source: Yang Ming
