China Merchants Port posts HK$ 7.2 billion, benefits from Sri Lanka terminals

Hambantota port in Sri Lanka

China Merchants Port Holdings (0144) reported today net profit for the year ended December 31, 2018, grew by 20.2 percent year-on-year to HK$7.24 billion. The port operators said the group benefited from overseas operations, including in Sri Lanka, while Hong Kong throughput declined by more than 5 percent in 2018.

Revenue reached HK$10.16 billion, up by 16.9 percent from 2017. Revenue from Hong mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan was HK$6.53 billion.

One customer has accounted for more than 10 perent of total revenue amounting to HK$1,23 billion.

Basic earnings per share were HK$2.1954.

A final dividend of 73 HK cents was declared.

The company said containers handled increased by 6 percent on-year to 109.06 million TEUs, for 102.90 million TEUs in 2017. Ports in mainland China contributed container throughput of 80.73 million TEUs, up by 4.7 percent year-on-year. Operations in Hong Kong and Taiwan contributed an aggregate container throughput of 7.67 million TEUs, representing a growth of 2.5 percent from last year.

China Merchants Port said the company benefitted from the rapid growth of Colombo International Container Terminals in Sri Lanka, Lomé Container Terminal S.A. in Togo and Kumport Liman Hizmetleri ve Lojistik Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi (“Kumport”) in Turkey. Total container throughput of overseas ports grew by 12.9 percen year-on-year to 20.66 million TEUs

Containers handled by ports in Hong Kong declined by 5.7 percent on-year, of which the containers handled by ports in Kwai Tsing dropped by 4.7 percent on-year. Modern Terminals and China Merchants Container Services delivered an aggregate container throughput of 5.93 million TEUs, up by 2.5 percent year-on-year, which outperformed the overall market of Hong Kong.

Shares of China Merchants Port added 1.34 percent, or 22 HK cents, to HK$16.66 as of noon.

(The Standard)