New ship deliveries, combined with any developments in the Red Sea situation, will be decisive factors in shaping the market, liner giant CMA CGM said Friday.
As the container liner operator reported revenue growth, the French company pointed to worries that higher tariffs announced in the United States could have an impact on trade and lead to a reorganization of global supply chains in the medium term.
The Marseille-based company still expects for 2025 stable global economic growth of around 3%. The liner company also predicts that global trade for goods should grow at the same rate as GDP.
The French company is turning increasingly cautious about the coming year. “The Group’s balance sheet remains robust, enabling it to look confidently ahead to 2025, a year that is set to be shaped by geopolitical and market uncertainty,” the company said in its 2024 annual financial report.
“In this environment, the Group remains prudent and is paying close attention to the changing economic and geopolitical situation, while remaining confident in its ability to weather the cycle thanks to its business diversification and financial strength,” it added.
CMA CGM’s full-year 2024 revenue stood at $55.5bn, a 18.0% year-on-year increase that was led by the performance of the group’s container shipping activities.
Ebitda came to $13.4bn, representing an Ebitda margin of 24.2% that was up 5.1 points on the year before.
Commenting on the results for the year, Rodolphe Saadé, chairman and chief executive officer of the CMA CGM Group, said: “Our Group has delivered strong results this year, driven by our shipping activities. Our logistics business has also performed well, supported by the strategic investments made in recent years.
“In 2025, in a context of heightened geopolitical tensions and unprecedented uncertainty, our Group will continue to strengthen its position with an expanding low-carbon fleet, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and a workforce trained to tackle the challenges ahead.”
Last year, the CMA CGM Group continued to strengthen its position in port infrastructure, with a network that now includes 60 port terminals in 30 countries.
In 2024, the group took delivery of 12 new LNG-fueled vessels (Liquefied Natural Gas).
To achieve net-zero carbon by 2050, the group has invested nearly $20bn to order LNG and methanol-powered ships and will have 153 ships capable of using low-carbon energies (biogas, biomethanol and synthetic fuels) in its fleet by 2029.
In the future, the diversity of technologies and the availability of greener fuels, such as biomethane or biomethanol, will remain a major challenge for the CMA CGM Group and the industry.
The CMA CGM Group has also strengthened its position in the global supply chain with the acquisition of Bolloré Logistics, the biggest acquisition in the group’s history since its creation in 1978.
