Hapag-Lloyd closed the 2025 financial year with higher transport volumes but significantly weaker profitability, reflecting growing pressure on freight rates despite solid demand. Preliminary figures published by the container carrier show a market increasingly shaped by excess capacity and limited pricing power.
According to the company, transport volumes increased by 8% year on year to 13.5 million TEU. Over the same period, however, the average freight rate fell by 8% to USD 1,376 per TEU. The combination of rising volumes and falling rates points to a market in which demand was present, but carriers were unable to defend prices.
Group revenue for 2025 reached USD 21.1 billion, only slightly higher than the USD 20.7 billion reported a year earlier, despite the substantial increase in cargo volumes. At the same time, profitability deteriorated sharply. EBITDA fell to USD 3.6 billion from USD 5.0 billion in 2024, while EBIT dropped to USD 1.1 billion from USD 2.8 billion.
The figures suggest that additional cargo volumes translated into limited financial upside, as lower unit revenues offset the benefits of higher utilisation. This dynamic is typical of an early downcycle, in which competition intensifies and price discipline weakens across the market.
Hapag-Lloyd attributed part of the earnings decline to higher operating costs linked to the continued rerouting of vessels via the Cape of Good Hope, which has increased fuel consumption and voyage times. Additional costs were incurred during the rollout of the Gemini Network, the new alliance structure launched in 2025.
While the company noted that Gemini-related cost savings began to materialise in the second half of the year, these benefits were not sufficient to counterbalance the broader decline in freight rates. Hapag-Lloyd expects the full effect of these synergies to be realised in 2026.
Notably, the preliminary results do not include announcements of restructuring measures, service withdrawals or workforce reductions. Operations continued without major disruptions, and volumes expanded across the network. However, the sharp fall in earnings indicates that the business has become more exposed to rate movements, with profitability increasingly dependent on cost control rather than market pricing power.
Hapag-Lloyd described the 2025 result as being within its earnings guidance and at the upper end of its forecast range. The company is scheduled to publish its audited annual report and outlook for 2026 on 26 March.
Maersk cuts jobs but Hapag-Lloyd holds the line
The earnings pressure visible in Hapag-Lloyd’s 2025 results reflects a broader deterioration in container shipping profitability. A similar pattern is evident at Maersk, although the scale of the decline and the response have differed.
Hapag-Lloyd reported a 61% year-on-year fall in EBIT, from USD 2.8 billion in 2024 to USD 1.1 billion in 2025, despite an 8% increase in transport volumes. The figures underline the extent to which falling freight rates outweighed volume growth, eroding margins even as network utilisation improved.
Maersk’s 2025 results point in the same direction, though with a less pronounced contraction. The Danish group’s EBIT declined from USD 6.5 billion in 2024 to USD 3.5 billion in 2025, a 46% year-on-year decrease, as lower freight rates weighed on the Ocean business despite stable volumes and strong performance in terminals and logistics.
The divergence becomes clearer in how the two groups have reacted to this compression in earnings. Maersk has already moved to adjust its cost base, announcing measures to cut corporate overheads by USD 180 million annually, including the closure of around 1,000 corporate positions, or roughly 15% of roles at headquarters and regional offices. Hapag-Lloyd, by contrast, has not announced workforce reductions alongside its 2025 results, instead emphasising expected cost synergies from the Gemini Network, which are forecast to materialise fully in 2026.
