By Karen Robes Meeks
Matson, Inc. posted a net income of $36.2 million for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2019 slightly lower than the $41.6 million recorded for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2018, the company announced Thursday.
Consolidated revenue for the 2019 third quarter reached $572.1 million, a drop from $589.4 million reported for the same period in 2018.
The quarter’s results came in as expected, according to Matt Cox, Matson's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Within Ocean Transportation, our China trade lane service performed well, but we saw continued weakness in our Hawaii market and experienced softer-than-expected volume in our Alaska service,” he said in a statement. “Within our Logistics segment, we continued to perform well with positive contributions to operating income from nearly all of the service lines."
The company maintains its 2019 consolidated operating income outlook, “given the performance year-to-date and our expectations for our businesses in the final quarter of the year,” Cox said.
“As we near the end of this transition year with Lurline expected to enter service this quarter, we take a significant step towards realizing our previously-mentioned approximately $30 million in financial benefits in 2020, when compared to 2019, driven primarily from the reduction in Hawaii fleet deployment to nine vessels," he said.