Revenues reflected a 10% growth in container volumes and a 14% increase in non-container. The company’s revenues from Middle East, Africa and European operations grew 14% to USD1 billion, but revenues from Asia Pacific, Indian subcontinent and Australia fell in the first half.
“The past six months has been a challenging period for the global economy. Taking this into account, it is very encouraging that DP World has been able to show good profit growth across its global portfolio, led by it key markets of Africa, the Middle East and South America,” said DP World chairman Sultan Ahmen Bin Sulayem in a company statement.
DP World handled 28.2 million TEU at its more than 60 terminals compared with 26.2 million TEU in the same period last year – an increase of 7.5%.
Looking across its regional portfolio, the company said the Middle East, Europe and Africa region delivered a remarkable performance with an 18% improvement in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) to USD477 million and further improvement in EBITDA margin to 46.3%. “This reflects the strategic positioning of our terminals towards the faster growing and stronger economies in this region, mitigating weaker trade across continental Europe,” said the company statement. The Asia-Pacific and Indian subcontinent reported EBITDA of USD159 million in the first six months and record EBITDA margins of 68.4%. Our terminals in the Australia and Americas region delivered a strong revenue performance in the first six months of 2012 reporting revenue of USD266 million, or 12%, growth on an underlying basis and EBITDA of USD77 million.”