Westport CEO Ruben Emir Gnanalingam says there would be some re-routing of services out of Westports once the P3 alliance, involving CMA CGM Group, Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co, come into effect mid-2014, but the reduced capacity would be mitigated by the growth of cargo handling underpinned by robust global trading environment.
KUALA LUMPUR: Westports Holdings Bhd
posted a lower net profit of RM140.9mil in the first quarter ended March 31, 2017, compared with RM171.07mil in the same period a year ago.
The group’s pre-tax profit fell 15% to RM179.1mil in the first quarter compared with RM211mil. Excluding one-off gain of RM20.4mil from the disposal of investment in quoted shares in Q116, the pre-tax profit dropped by 6% mainly due to higher fuel cost.
Its revenue, however, rose 13% to RM520.9mil in the first quarter against RM464.7mil posted last year. Its earnings per share for the period was lower at 4.13 sen per share against 5.02 sen previously.
Westports said it recorded an operational revenue of RM438.6mil for the during the quarter compared with RM436.3mil for the corresponding quarter last year, representing a growth of 1%.
It said container throughput increased by 1% from 2.41 million to 2.43 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) for the period under review. The intra-Asia segment constituted half of the total containers handled and this segment saw a favourable increase of 9%.
In a separate statement, Westports said it continued to facilitate domestic economic activities as the gateway volume of both laden export and import containers grew by 3% in 1Q2017.
It said conventional throughput in 1Q2017 increased by 8% to 2.8 million tonnes as Westports handled especially more liquid bulk cargoes.
CEO Ruben Emir Gnanalingam said Westports started the year on a positive note with improved container volume of 2.43 million TEUs.
“The realignment in the container shipping industry has resulted in a lesser number of clients but significantly larger alliances. As these larger alliances optimise their network, services and also port of calls, they will also influence the total number of containers being handled by a particular terminal,” he said.
“The Ocean Alliance has adopted the dual hubbing approach for South East Asia and would be using Westports as one of its transhipment hubs whilst The Allíance will also be having at least one service at Westports going forward.
“At Westports, we have always been a supply-driven terminal. To service these much bigger alliances, we believe our ongoing capacity expansion at CT8 and CT9 would be able to meet their requirements better as well as providing our clients with the assurance that they can grow with us in the future,” Ruben said.
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