DP World reports 13.5% gross volume growth in Q3 2017
DP World handled 52.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) across its global portfolio of container terminals in the first nine months of 2017, with gross container volumes growing by 10.0% year-on-year on a reported basis and 9.6% on a like-for-like basis.
The third quarter growth rates accelerating to 13.5% y-o-y on a reported basis and 13.3% on a like-for-like basis, ahead of second quarter growth and Drewry Maritimes upgraded industry estimate of 5.5% throughput growth in 2017.
Global trade outlook improved significantly in 2017 with the World Trade Organization (WTO) recently upgrading trade growth from 2.4% to 3.6% in 2017. All three DP World regions saw third quarter growth rates accelerate even more than the second quarter of 2017, particularly terminals in Middle East and Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The UAE handled 11.6 million TEU in 9M2017, growing 4.6% y-o-y.
At a consolidated level, DP World’s terminals handled 27.3 million TEU during the first nine months of 2017, a 24.2% improvement in performance on a reported basis and up 6.2% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis. Reported consolidated volume in the Asia Pacific and Indian Subcontinent region was boosted by the consolidation of Pusan (South Korea) at the end of 2016.
Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, group chairman and CEO, DP World
Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, DP World group chairman and CEO, said: The recovery of global trade in 2017 has outperformed previous expectations and we have seen significant upward revisions by economists and industry experts. Benefitting from the improved trading environment and market share gains from the new shipping alliances, our global portfolio continues to deliver ahead-of-market growth and this across all three regions. We have seen an acceleration of growth rates in the third quarter as we employ the right strategy and the relevant deep-water capacity in the key markets. We are pleased to see 3Q2017 UAE volumes continue to grow despite uncertainty in the region and the performance across our terminals in the Middle East and Africa, Americas, and Europe remains strong.”
He added: During the third quarter, we added 1.5 million TEU of new capacity in Jebel Ali Terminal 3 (T3) and 0.5 million TEU in Prince Rupert (Canada) which provides us room for continued growth in these key markets. We continue to seek growth opportunities in Latin America, Africa, and Indian subcontinent where there remains significant structural growth potential. We expect our portfolios volume growth to continue to outperform the market and given the encouraging performance so far, we remain well placed to meet full year 2017 market expectations.
