Monthly container freight rate index worldwide 2023-2024

Container freight rates oscillated dramatically between January 2023 and August 2024. Freight rates slumped to their lowest level on the 26th of October 2023, when the going rate for a 40-foot container was only 1,342 U.S. dollars. Since then, the global freight rate has significantly increased, hitting over 5,900 U.S. dollars in July 2024, the highest value on record.How did we get here?The global supply chain is a fragile system consisting of numerous links. Disruption to one can send cascading effects down a chain that needs to function properly for the whole system to work. The COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be an event of such a magnitude to either bring to halt whole industries and supply chains, or severely reduce their efficiency. Due to its complexity and transcontinental nature, container shipping was hit especially hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the start of the pandemic, the shipping industry has had to struggle with port closures and congestions, labor shortages, difficulties with capacity utilization, as well as a lack of new shipping containers. These challenges continue to have repercussions on the industry to this day. Container carriers profitingWhile costs of operating a container fleet have increased, the surge in freight rates has not served just to cover rising expenses. Container ship operators had been reporting record-high operating profit margins since the beginning of the pandemic. However, despite these high profit margins, the freight rate increase has had some repercussions. In the second quarter of 2023, main container shipping companies had an average profit margin of 8.9 percent, a decrease of almost 50 percent compared to the peak EBIT in the first quarter of 2022. Despite this decrease, some of the carriers are combating this trend by using their previous profits to increase their carrying capacity by buying new containers and ordering new container ships. However, the delivery of these newly ordered ships is still years away.

集装箱运费在2023年1月至2024年8月期间波动剧烈。2023年10月26日，运费跌至历史最低点，当时40英尺集装箱的运价仅为1342美元。自那以后，全球运费显著上升，于2024年7月达到5900美元以上，创历史新高。我们是如何走到这一步的？全球供应链是一个由众多环节构成的脆弱体系。其中任何一个环节的断裂都可能导致连锁反应，影响整个体系的正常运行。COVID-19大流行最终证明是一场规模巨大的灾难，它要么使整个行业和供应链陷入停滞，要么严重降低其效率。由于其复杂性和跨大陆的特性，集装箱航运业受到COVID-19大流行的严重影响。自大流行开始以来，航运业不得不应对港口关闭和拥堵、劳动力短缺、利用能力困难以及新集装箱短缺等问题。这些挑战至今仍在影响着整个行业。集装箱航运运营商的盈利状况尽管集装箱船队的运营成本上升，但运费的激增并不仅仅是为了覆盖不断增长的支出。自大流行开始以来，集装箱船运营商已报告创纪录的运营利润率。然而，尽管利润率很高，运费的增长也带来了一些影响。2023年第二季度，主要集装箱航运公司的平均利润率为8.9%，较2022年第一季度峰值EBIT下降了近50%。尽管有所下降，但一些运营商正通过利用过去的利润来增加运力，购买新集装箱并订购新集装箱船来对抗这一趋势。然而，新订单船只的交付还需数年才能完成。