In the first quarter of 2025, the container shipping industry recorded a net profit of $9.9 billion, marking a significant decline compared to previous quarters, but still maintaining historically strong performance.

According to the quarterly financial performance report of the container shipping sector by shipping analyst John McCown, first-quarter earnings dropped by 36.4% compared to $15.6 billion in Q4 2024. However, compared to Q1 2024, industry profits increased by 82.8%, when the recorded profit was $5.4 billion.

The profit in the first quarter marks the third consecutive quarterly decline following a net loss in Q4 2023. These fluctuations are mainly due to the Red Sea crisis. According to McCown, vessels rerouting around southern Africa have reduced global shipping capacity by 8%.

The Red Sea situation particularly affects the Asia–Europe trade route, which accounts for about 25% of global container shipping mileage, resulting in longer routes and significantly impacting pricing and capacity.

Meanwhile, container throughput has shown continuous growth, with a 4.5% year-on-year increase in Q1 2025. In previous quarters, throughput increased by 6.6%, 4.6%, 5.9%, and 7.7%, respectively.

The report also highlights the container shipping industry’s astonishing profitability compared to the pre-pandemic era. According to McCown, from 2016 to 2019, the industry had cumulative losses of $8.5 billion on $681.2 billion in revenue, resulting in a negative profit margin of 1.3%. By contrast, in the following five years from 2020 to 2024, the industry saw significant improvement, with net profit margins of 8.1%, 36.8%, 42.7%, 9.6%, and 18.3%, respectively.

“Despite the $9.9 billion net profit in Q1 2025 being well below the 11 quarters during the pandemic and the three recent quarters driven by the Red Sea situation, excluding these periods, Q1 2025 profit exceeds the profit earned by the container shipping industry in any previous full year,” McCown wrote.

“Likewise, the 12.5% profit margin in Q4 2024 is many times higher than any pre-pandemic quarterly net profit margin.”

Looking ahead, McCown expects the decline in earnings to continue into Q2 2025, although forecasts for the second half of the year remain uncertain.