In the third quarter of this year, the Danish group's revenues A.P. Møller-Mærsk, driven by the rise in the value of maritime freight rates recorded an increase of +27.4% on the same period of 2025 rising to 18.1 billion dollars. The only containerized shipping activities have total revenues of €12.6 billion (+37.0%), of which €10.7 billion billion generated by maritime shipments (+37.4%) and almost 1.9 billion billion from related services (+34.9%). Among the other main Group activities, revenues generated by logistics services amounted to $4.5 billion (+12.7%) and those of the terminal activities at a record value of 1.5 billion (+4,9%).

In the core business of containerized maritime transport, the quarterly operating costs increased by +18.0% to 8.7 billion, mainly due to higher fuel prices: average bunker price rose +48.6% to $798 per ton and spending grew by 36.6% to over 2.1 billion, despite lower consumption (2.5 million tons) of -6.3% helped by the partial return to the route that crosses the Suez Canal. The costs associated with the maritime network, excluding bunkers, increased by +12.4% and those for container handling by +9.3% due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the congestion in terminals.

In the third quarter of 2026, the value of the operating margin gross quarterly income of the group was 4.7 billion (+75.4%) and that of operating profit of 3.3 billion (+154.6%), with a contribution of €2.6 billion from containerized shipping (+357.0%), 256 million from logistics (+18.8%) and 493 million dollars from port terminals (-13.7%). Maersk concluded the third quarter of 2026 with net profit up +178.0% to 3.0 billion of dollars.

Maersk specified that the EBIT of the Ocean division is was also supported by lower depreciation, due to the review of the useful life of ships. Maersk at the end of the quarter operated 754 ships with a total capacity of 4.7 million TEU +2.2%), of which 338 owned and 416 rented. Only 1.2% of the fleet was idle. In September, the group ordered 26 dual-fuel container ships of 18,600 TEUs, capable of operating at liquefied natural gas, to be delivered between 2029 and 2030. The order book for dual-fuel vessels has thus risen to 56 units.

The group's container fleet in the third quarter transported containers totalling 3.37 million 40' containers (-0.8%), with a +6.7% growth in traffic intra-regional which stood at 764 thousand FEUs, while the North-South one is remained stable at 1.09 million FEU (-0.5%) and traffic East-West fell by -4.3% to 1.52 million feu. In the period, the average value of freight rates was 3,287 dollars/feu (+46.5%), with average freight rates of 3,631 dollars/feu for East-West services (+36.5%), to $4,104/FEU for services North-South (+26.4%) and $1,703/FEU for intra-regional (+3,3%).

Maersk highlighted that in the third quarter of this year, the Worldwide demand for container shipping has grown between +2% and +4%, while the supply was absorbed by Widespread congestion: the average waiting time of ships in ports peaked at 16.6 hours on August 25, the highest level in the world. high since January 2023, also due to typhoons in East Asia. World fleet capacity was 5.1% higher compared to a year earlier, but a substantial part is therefore remained in fact blocked.

In the quarter, the port terminals of the terminal subsidiary APM Terminals handled 3.80 million containers (+2.6%), of which €1.41 million to serve the group's ships (+0.4%) and €2.39 million to serve third parties (+4.0%). The North American terminals alone handled 1.09 million containers (-0.4%), those in America Latina 692 thousand (0%), terminals in Europe 839 thousand (+6.7%), those in Africa 218 thousand (+14.1%) and terminals in Asia and the Middle East 966 thousand (+2,1%). In the period, the revenue from container handling grew by +6.4% to $393, thanks to higher rates, higher revenues from storage and a favourable mix, while the Cost per handling rose +5.7% to $293.

In the period July-September, the logistics division shipments handled of 31.5 million cubic metres (+5.6%), to which are added 100 thousand tons of air shipments (+22.0%).

The Danish group has revised upwards its estimates for Full Year 2026: Underlying EBIT is expected to be between 8.0 and $8.5 billion, compared to $4.5 billion to $6.5 billion indicated in the last August 13.