NYK’s half-year profit soars 173%
NYK Line boosted its net income by 173 percent in the six-month period ended Sept. 30, to 21.3 billion yen ($192 million), as its shipping business returned a large increase in operating profits while extraordinary financial items also helped its bottom line.
Group operating income amounted to Yen44.4 billion ($400 million) in the April-September period, 8 percent more than in the corresponding period of 2002.
Whereas operating profit from the group’s logistics, cruise, terminal and real estate activities showed no improvement in the latest six-month period, NYK’s shipping arm increased its operating income by 61 percent, to Yen46.6 billion ($420 million). Revenue from shipping rose by 10 percent over the same period, to Yen437.5 billion ($3.9 billion).
Group revenues amounted to Yen680 billion ($6.1 billion) in April-September, showing an increase of 11 percent on the year-earlier period. NYK said that the higher group revenues reflected higher volumes and freight rates in the shipping segment, as well as expansion in logistics and terminal operations.
Logistics activities produced a Yen1 billion ($9 million) operating income in the latest six-month period, on a 14-percent higher revenue of Yen135.4 billion ($1.2 billion). Terminal activities, which include those of Ceres since October 2002, returned a Yen300 million ($3 million) operating profit on a 59-percent higher revenue of Yen48.5 billion ($436 million).
NYK also reported a 17 percent increase in its liner shipping revenue for the April-September period, to Yen192.1 billion ($1.7 billion), but did not disclose this segment’s operating income.
Container traffic in the liner trade was “brisk, reflecting soaring demand on all routes, including from Asia to North American and Europe,” NYK said. The Japanese group reported a tighter supply and higher rates in the container trades to Europe and North America.
NYK said that it made extraordinary gains on the sale of fixed assets and reduced extraordinary losses on fixed asset write-offs during the latest six-month period.
The Japanese group predicted that results should continue to improve in its shipping business in the second half of its financial year to March 2004. It cited a favorable liner trade demand and solid contributions from its tramper and specialized carrier activities and from long-term tanker contracts.
NYK forecast that it will make an annual net income of Yen33 billion ($297 million) for the year ending in March 2004, up from Yen14.2 billion in the previous financial year. It expects revenue of Yen1.4 trillion ($12.1 billion) for the current financial year, as compared to Yen1.2 trillion in the year ended in March 2003.