Retail Sales News

The BIMCO Container Shipping Market Overview & Outlook for March 2024 has been published, and Niels Rasmussen, BIMCO’s Chief Shipping Analyst, highlights that ship supply is expected to grow on average 9.1% in 2024 and 4.1% in 2025.Rerouting via Cape of Good Hope is assumed to impact the first half of 2024. Ship demand increases an estimated 9.5% in 2024 and falls 0.5% in 2025. The supply/demand balance is expected to tighten in the first half of 2024 but then weaken when ships can return to the Suez Canal routing.According to the IMF…

“Despite falling 1.1% m/m in both November and December, US retail sales volumes remain 13% above 2019 levels and 6% higher than the pre-COVID trend. However, sales volumes could return to trend during 2023 and thereby pose a risk for Asia to North America container volumes,” says Niels Rasmussen, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO.Supported by COVID stimulus packages and mobility restrictions limiting spending on services, retail sales volumes in the US have remained on average 15% higher than 2019 levels since early 2021.

Imports at the United States’ major container ports are expected to fall to their lowest level in nearly two years by the end of 2022 even though retail sales continue to grow, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.“The holiday season has already started for some shoppers and, thanks to pre-planning, retailers have plenty of merchandise on hand to meet demand,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.

China's exports rose at the fastest pace in five months in June as factories revved up after the lifting of COVID lockowns, but a sharp slowdown in imports, fresh virus flare-ups and a darkening global outlook pointed to a bumpy road ahead for the economy.Analysts say the rebound in exports reflected an easing of supply chain disruptions and port congestion that hammered the world's second-largest economy in spring when the government rolled out widespread lockdowns.Outbound shipments in June rose 17.9% from a year earlier…

Newbuild spend for vehicle carriers, including large car and truck carriers (LCTC), pure car and truck carriers (PCTC) and pure car carriers (PCC), smashed past $3.2 billion last week, following big volume orders from Eastern Pacific and Zodiac—an astonishing amount of money for a niche sector, exceeding the previous six years total combined. If we include options, a whopping $4.4 billion has been agreed year to date. Japanese shipyards have raised tariffs to $100 million for dual fuel liquefied natural gas (LNG) 7,000 car equivalent units (CEU), up by a staggering $10 million compared to last year. Chinese yards have followed but maintain a healthy discount quoting $88 million for an equivalent spec.

U.S. manufacturing of durable goods, which has been lagging the wider recovery of the U.S. economy, hit an all-time high in June when $270.5B worth of goods was produced. This brings total manufacturing of durable goods so far this year to $1,482 billion, a 15.5% increase compared with the first half of 2020.Since the production of durable goods in the first half of 2021 is up 1.6% from the first half of 2019, this section of the industry has now officially returned to its pre-pandemic levels.Manufacturing activity is expected to have continued its growth in July…

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continue their record-breaking start to the year, exceeding pre-pandemic records again and again. Already under pressure to handle a throughput that has broken the pre-pandemic record every month for 11 months in a row, practically all ports in the US will have to continue to run fast to keep up, as peak season starts breathing down their necks.In May, loaded imports and total throughput in both ports broke their previous highs. In the Port of LA, 535,714 loaded TEU were imported, up from the previous record of 490,127 TEU.

A retail trade group is asking President Joe Biden and other top administration officials to help address challenges retailers are facing from continued supply chain disruptions that are leading to congestion at U.S. ports.“The supply chain disruption issues, especially the congestion affecting our key maritime ports, are causing significant challenges for America’s retailers,” National Retail Federation president and CEO Matthew Shay said in a letter to the White House. “The…

The surge in U.S. container imports continued in April when West Coast loaded imports amounted to 1.10m TEU. Imports had never exceeded this level until August 2020, and developments in the past nine months mean that April imports are only the sixth highest on record. In the first four months of the year volumes are up by 40.3%, representing an increase of 1.2m TEU from the same period in 2020. Compared to 2019 volumes are still up by an impressive 22.8% (+793,500 TEU).Imports decreased in April compared to March when volumes were record high at 1.16m TEU.

The year 2021 has started in much the same way as 2020 ended for U.S. container imports; import volumes are still surging. As per usual seasonality, volumes came down a little in January and February, though this year the drop wasn’t as steep as usual, says shipping organization BIMCO. Imports by the two San Pedro Bay ports in California rose 27.8% in the first two months of the year compared to the same period in 2020. Although last year’s comparison is low due to the COVID-19 impact…

Electric propulsion and hybrid drives manufacturer Torqeedo said it ha established direct distribution in Norway to address the growing market for its systems in the region.Norway has a long tradition of seafaring and is a world maritime center for shipping, shipyards and maritime infrastructure, commercial fishing, offshore oil/gas, ferries, pleasure boats and a rapidly growing offshore wind industry.“Norway is a world leader in the movement toward electrification of land and water transportation…

A surge in demand for goods like furniture and exercise equipment from locked-down consumers has sparked a jump in shipping rates, boosting profits for Danish freight giant Maersk, the company said on Wednesday.Yet shares in the world’s largest container shipping line fell as much as 8% as it missed analysts’ lofty forecasts for the end of last year and gave more cautious guidance for 2021 than anticipated.Maersk’s ocean shipping business, its largest division, “performed at record level in the quarter as a consequence of the strong rebound of demand…

Shipping group Maersk said on Wednesday it is confident about the outlook for shipping beyond 2020 as a second wave of coronavirus infections has only had a limited impact on global freight volumes.Maersk, the world’s biggest container shipping line, has recovered faster than expected after the pandemic halted trade around the world, benefiting from higher retail sales in the United States.“The second wave of coronavirus infections has had relatively limited impact on trade volumes,” Chief Executive Soren Skou told a news briefing after announcing third-quarter results in line with preliminary

Surging shipments into the United States are fueling record high freight costs and logjams at seaports, but transportation executives say the rally will lose steam with a second wave of COVID-19 restrictions on the cards.Container shipping companies, which move goods for customers including Amazon.com and Walmart, got stung late last year and early this year when COVID-19 halted trade around the world, and they question whether the U.S. import boom can be sustained."Let's not get carried away," Rolf Habben Jansen, chief executive of Germany's Hapag Lloyd, told reporters.

The coronavirus pandemic has shutdown much of the U.S. economy for months and even as parts of it reopen, the data is beginning to reveal the extent of the damage that has been done and a slow recovery is taking a tentative shape.The second estimate for gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter shows a 5% contraction from the previous quarter, and just 0.2% growth from the first quarter of 2019. With lockdown measures having only come into force in late March, the second quarter of the year will prove even more damaging for the U.S.

Shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk warned of a sharp drop in global container volumes due to the coronavirus pandemic, with weaker retail sales and depressed car production dampening demand.The crisis has thrown the container shipping trade off balance as supply chains have been upended and businesses and factory activity in China and later across the world was disrupted.Maersk, which also reported a 23% rise in first-quarter core profits on Wednesday, now expects global container demand to contract this year…

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus a pandemic. There is little doubt that this will have significant implications for the shipping industry. But to what extent? BIMCO expects that the strict containment measures imposed by governments around the world will result in substantially lower global economic growth and consequentially, lower demand for shipping. Container and dry bulk shipping are at the front line when it comes to feeling the fallout…

The $1 trillion container shipping industry is in a slowdown. Literally.Some shipping lines, whose retail customers are being hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, are reducing sailing speeds and taking longer routes around Africa, avoiding Suez canal passage fees, according to the companies and ship-tracking specialists.Many are also cutting down the number of voyages and providing short-term storage for clients as the industry, which includes heavyweights like Maersk, MSC and Hapag-Lloyd…

Imports at the nation’s major retail container ports are expected to increase 4.6 percent during the first half of 2017 over the same period last year as the nation’s economy improves and retail sales continue to grow, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. “This is very much in line with what we are forecasting for retail sales and consumer spending this year,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. “Retailers try to balance inventories very carefully with demand.

Orient Overseas (International) Ltd recorded an almost 5% increase in profit for the full year 2015, despite the weakness in the container shipping market, thanks in part to yield and cost management efforts. Though the year started well for the Hong Kong corporate, supply and demand imbalance eventually took its toll, say market analysts. OOIL said its profit attributable to equity holders for the year ended 31 December 2015 rose 4.9% year-on-year to US$284 million. Basic and diluted earnings per share were US45.4 cents. The revenue was US$5,953 million, a decrease of 8.7% from a year earlier. The Chairman of OOIL, C C Tung, said, “At the start of 2015, container shipping companies enjoyed unforeseen conditions that were, almost without exception, positive.

Import cargo volume at the United States’ major retail container ports has begun its annual climb toward summer levels but is expected to be largely flat when compared with last year’s record high numbers, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. “Last year was a roller coaster but this year we’re expecting a nice, steady climb right through the summer,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.

Scandlines focused the business on the Germany-Denmark routes and made significant investments in future-proofing the group’s ferry operations as well as catering and retail activities in 2015. Efforts to promote the Rostock-Gedser route paid off for Scandlines having recorded the highest number of transported passengers in five years and posted strong financial results. Revenue grew by 3.5% to EUR 460 million in 2015 (2014: EUR 445 million) as Scandlines recorded its highest number of transported passengers in five years. The ferries transported 7.6 million passengers, 1.8 million cars and 0.5 million freight units in 2015. Progress was driven by particularly strong performance on the Rostock-Gedser route…

August should be the busiest month of the year for import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports now that retailers have stocked up for back-to-school and are getting a head start on holiday season merchandise. That’s according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates, which said cargo volume for 2016 should end the year with a 1.6 percent increase over last year. “Shoppers are right in the middle of buying back-to-school products but the retail supply chain is already preparing for the holiday season…