In the first half of 2019, HHLA’s transport companies achieved significant growth in the Intermodal segment. With an increase of 9.6 %, container transport rose to 782 thousand standard containers (TEU). This trend was driven by growth in both rail and road transport.
Compared with the previous year, rail transport increased by 9.3 % to 610,000 TEU. In a market environment that remains difficult, road transport grew by 10.8 % to 172,000 TEU due to the strong increase in delivery volumes.
At EUR 244.1 million, revenue was up 17.4 % on the prior-year figure and thus performed much better than transport volume. With a roughly sustained rail share compared to the previous year, longer transport distances, in addition to price adjustments, made a particular contribution to this strong increase in revenue.
In the Container segment, container throughput increased moderately by 3.8 % in the first half of 2019 to 3,770 thousand standard containers (TEU). This was particularly influenced by the successful integration of the terminal in Tallinn, which was acquired last year.
Due to the increase in volume of 3.8 % combined with an improvement in average revenue compared to 2018, revenue increased by 5.6 % to EUR 401.7 million. This was largely caused by an increase in the rail share. The operating result (EBIT) increased by EUR 3.6 million or 5.3 % year-on-year to EUR 71.8 million.
The listed Port Logistics subgroup saw a 9.8 % increase in revenue in the first six months to EUR 677.5 million, while the operating result (EBIT) rose strongly by 15.6 % to EUR 105.6 million. The EBIT margin improved by 0.8 percentage points to 15.6 %.
