Maersk Posts Record Earnings, Growth in Logistics Business for Q2 2021

In the second quarter of 2021, A.P. Moller - Maersk continued to deliver strong growth and profitability, with record-breaking performance marking the 12th quarter of successive year-on-year earnings progress.

Revenue grew 58% to $14.2 billion in Q2 and EBIT increased almost five times to $4.1 billion. The net result came in at $3.7 billion in the second quarter, bringing the net result for the first half of 2021 to $6.5 billion. Return on invested capital (ROIC) is now at 23.7% for the past 12 months.

Søren Skou, CEO A.P. Moller - Maersk said: "The strong results benefited both from the exceptional circumstances in Ocean, where congestions and bottlenecks continued to drive up rates, and from solid progress in executing on our strategic transformation where we kept a firm focus on our customers need for integrated solutions across their supply chains.

"To that effect we also announced today the acquisitions of Visible SCM and B2C Europe which complements our existing supply chain offering and addresses our customers need for e-commerce logistics."

In Ocean, profitability in Q2 was driven by revenue growth to $11.1 billion from $6.6 billion and EBIT increased to $3.6 billion from $0.5 billion.

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The growth came from a 15% rebound in volumes and an increase in average freight rates of 59%, as both long-terms contracts rates with key clients increased and short-term contracts were still impacted by congestions and bottlenecks.

Logistics & Services delivered 38% revenue growth to $2.2 billion in Q2 with more than half coming from the top Ocean customers.

Demand was strong across all product families and consequently EBIT more than tripled to $153 million compared to $42 million in the same quarter last year, leading to an EBIT margin of 7.1%.

Also, Gateway Terminals had a strong Q2 with volumes rebounding 24% and persisting high storage income. Revenue increased to $969 million from $723 million last year, while EBIT doubled to $302 million leading to an EBIT margin of 31.1%.

On the outlook Mr Skou said: "The outlook for Q3 is strong and we expect that the current momentum in Ocean will continue into Q4, also benefitting our Terminals business.

"Logistics & Services will continue its strong growth pattern for the rest of the year. As communicated on 2 August, we have upgraded our guidance for 2021 to an underlying EBITDA of $18-19.5 billion, an EBIT of $14-15.5 billion and a free cash flow expected to be minimum $11.5 billion."

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