Companies & Markets Oct 10, 2026 · 7 min read

Carrier Q3 results: OOCL’s trans-Pacific revenue up 72%

OOCL’s Q3 revenue jumps 45% as trans-Pacific takings rise 72%. OOCL’s liner revenue rose 45.1% year on year to $3.28bn in the third quarter, according to Container News. Trans-Pacific revenue rose 71.8% to $1.44bn on 13.1% more cargo. In our view this was price, not demand. OOCL moved slightly fewer boxes than in the second quarter, yet revenue rose about 29%. Part of the jump is also a rebound from a weak 2025. Carriers now head into 2027 contract talks flush with cash. Our call: Asia-Europe spot rates will be lower by the end of November than they are today, and trans-Pacific rates will hold up better.

OOCL’s Q3 revenue jumps 45% as trans-Pacific takings rise 72%
OOCL has posted a big number for the third quarter. The Hong Kong-based line said liner revenue for July to September rose 45.1% year on year to $3.28bn, according to Container News. Its trans-Pacific business did even better. Revenue on that lane rose 71.8% to $1.44bn.
Our view is simple. This was a quarter driven by price, not by a surge in demand. Part of the jump is a rebound from a very weak 2025. And it hands carriers a strong hand as talks on 2027 contracts begin. Forwarders and shippers should plan for firm opening positions from carriers. They should push hardest where the market is already turning, and that is Asia-Europe.

What OOCL reported

The figures are unaudited and come from OOCL’s internal management accounts, according to Container News. Here are the main lines for the third quarter of 2026:

Liner revenue: $3.28bn, up 45.1% on a year earlier.

Liftings, meaning boxes loaded and carried: 2.12m TEU, up 9%. TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard measure of container volume.

Average revenue per TEU: up 33.1%.

Loadable capacity, the space OOCL had available: up 3.6%.

Load factor, how full its ships were: up 4.2%.

By trade lane, according to the same report:

Trans-Pacific: revenue up 71.8% to $1.44bn, from $837.9m. Liftings up 13.1% to 595,139 TEU.

Asia-Europe: revenue up 45% to $695.8m. Volume up 15.4% to 399,162 TEU.

Intra-Asia and Australasia: revenue up 23.7% to $947.6m. Volume up 4.6% to 981,336 TEU.

Trans-Atlantic: revenue up 11.9% to $201.8m. Liftings up 7.3% to 147,008 TEU.

For the first nine months, revenue was $7.96bn, up 18.9%, on liftings of 6.25m TEU, up 6.5%. Nine-month trans-Pacific revenue was $3.16bn, up 27%, and Asia-Europe revenue was $1.70bn, up 19%.
Capacity grew 3.6% while volume grew 9%. In plain terms, OOCL filled more of the space it had rather than adding lots of new space. Fuller ships with higher prices on each box is the best mix a carrier can have.
JOC summed up the drivers in one line: “Solid peak season demand and elevated rates on the two trade lanes lifted the top line numbers”. Peak season is the late-summer rush to ship goods for Western holiday sales.

Price did the work, not volume

The clearest sign comes from comparing this quarter with the one before. In the second quarter, OOCL lifted 2.14m TEU and booked $2.54bn in liner revenue, according to Container News. In the third quarter it lifted 2.12m TEU and booked $3.28bn. By our arithmetic, that is about 29% more revenue on slightly fewer boxes.
The trans-Pacific shows the same pattern more sharply. Second-quarter revenue on the lane was $973.7m. Third-quarter revenue was $1.44bn. That is a rise of roughly 48% in three months.
We can also work out what OOCL earned per box on each lane, using the revenue and volume figures above. These are our own rough calculations, and they blend contract and spot cargo:

Trans-Pacific: about $2,420 per TEU, up roughly 52% on a year ago.

Asia-Europe: about $1,740 per TEU, up roughly 26%.

Intra-Asia and Australasia: about $970 per TEU, up roughly 18%.

Trans-Atlantic: about $1,370 per TEU, up roughly 4%.

So the trans-Pacific did most of the heavy lifting. The trans-Atlantic barely moved on price.
The spot market explains why. Drewry’s World Container Index, a weekly measure of spot rates per 40-foot container, had Shanghai to Los Angeles at $6,802 on 20 August 2026, according to Hellenic Shipping News. Shanghai to New York was $9,507. Drewry then expected trans-Pacific rates “to remain stable next week due to tightened capacity.”

A rebound from a weak base

The year-on-year figures look so large partly because last year was poor. In the third quarter of 2025, OOCL’s liner revenue fell 25.9% and its trans-Pacific revenue fell 33.2%, according to Baird Maritime. Average revenue per TEU dropped 26.5%.
Spot rates were sliding at the time. On 18 September 2025, Drewry’s composite index stood at $1,913 per 40-foot container, and Shanghai to Los Angeles was $2,561, according to Hellenic Shipping News. Drewry called that week’s fall “the 14th consecutive week of decline.”
Put the two years together and the picture is calmer. By our arithmetic from the reported percentage changes, OOCL’s third-quarter liner revenue is now roughly 7% to 8% above where it was in the third quarter of 2024. Its trans-Pacific revenue is roughly 15% above. That is still a strong quarter. But it is not a 45% jump in the underlying business over two years.
The full-year view tells the same story. OOCL’s liner revenue for all of 2025 was $8.8bn, down 10.6% from $9.8bn in 2024, according to Port Technology International. After nine months of 2026 it has already booked $7.96bn. By our arithmetic, last year’s fourth quarter brought in about $2.1bn. A repeat of that would take 2026 past $10bn, above both 2025 and 2024.
This matters because the 2024-25 swing is the closest recent example of what happens next. Rates were high in 2024. A year later revenue was down by a quarter as rates slumped and new ships kept arriving. Container markets can turn within a few quarters.

Other carriers are saying the same thing

OOCL is not alone. Taiwan’s Yang Ming reported September revenue of NT$21.7bn, up 69.9% year on year and a 25-month high, according to BigGo Finance. The company said that “US-China tariff tensions have recently eased”, which helped US-bound volumes.
Israel’s Zim raised its 2026 guidance on 6 October, according to FreightWaves. Its adjusted EBIT forecast, a measure of operating profit, went to $1.4bn to $1.7bn, from $0.7bn to $1.1bn. The midpoint rose 72%. Zim pointed to “continued strong market demand and favorable momentum in freight rates.” FreightWaves also noted that “Zim awaits completion of its pending acquisition by Hapag-Lloyd.”
But there are warning signs in the same reports. Yang Ming said “demand in the Asia-Europe market is showing signs of softening”, according to BigGo Finance. It also pointed to “persistent congestion at major Asian ports”, which cuts the capacity that is actually usable. The same report cites an Alphaliner forecast of 4.7% growth in shipping supply in 2026 against 2.5% growth in demand. When supply grows faster than demand for long enough, rates fall.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

Carriers now have cash and confidence. That changes their behaviour in three ways that matter for anyone buying space.
First, they can afford blank sailings, meaning cancelled voyages, to keep ships full and rates up. A carrier that has just booked a 45% revenue rise does not need to chase marginal cargo.
Second, contract talks will start from a higher anchor. Carriers will point to these results when they set opening offers for 2027. Shippers on annual contracts should expect carriers to push for rates closer to recent spot levels.
Third, the lanes will not move together. The trans-Pacific is where OOCL’s per-box revenue rose most, and where easing tariff tensions are helping volumes. Asia-Europe is where Yang Ming sees demand softening. The trans-Atlantic saw almost no price gain.
For forwarders, that suggests a few practical steps:

On Asia-Europe, avoid locking in long contracts at current levels if you can. Keep some cargo on shorter-term or index-linked deals.

On the trans-Pacific, secure allocation for the first quarter early. Strong carrier earnings and blank sailings can tighten space quickly.

Watch port congestion in Asia. It can lift rates even when demand is flat, because ships sit idle instead of sailing.

Read the other carriers’ results closely as they come out. Revenue per box tells you more than headline revenue.

Shippers should also remember the base effect when carriers cite growth figures. A 72% rise from a weak year is not the same as a 72% rise in the market.

Our call

We think the strong run will continue into the rest of the reporting season. Our call is that every large listed container line that reports third-quarter results over the next six weeks will show year-on-year revenue growth, led by the trans-Pacific.
We also think Asia-Europe is already past its peak. Our prediction is that Drewry’s Shanghai to Rotterdam spot rate will be lower at the end of November than it is today. Trans-Pacific rates will hold up better into January, supported by blank sailings and steady US demand. By the time 2027 contracts are signed, we expect the gap between the two lanes to show up clearly in what shippers pay.

Sources