Honolulu-based Matson, Inc. on Monday the initial financial results of its fourth quarter.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Matt Cox said Matson ended a strong year with continued solid performance in the fourth quarter from Ocean Transportation and Logistics amid the challenging effects caused by COVID-19.
"Within Ocean Transportation, our China service saw significant demand for its CLX and CLX+ expedited ocean services through year end and was the primary driver of the increase in consolidated operating income year-over-year,” he said in a press release. “We continued to see favorable supply and demand dynamics in the transpacific trade lane during the quarter, and we continue to expect largely all of these trends to remain favorable in the first half of 2021 as the pandemic persists. As the pandemic subsides with widespread vaccination, we expect some of the supply and demand factors that we are currently benefiting from to remain and continue to drive demand for our CLX and CLX+ services."
In its other core tradelanes, Matson saw a rising demand for sustenance and home improvement goods, which led to increased quarterly year-over-year volume growth in Hawaii, Alaska and Guam, Cox added.
Logistics operating income rose year-over-year due to more “goods consumption and inventory restocking and tight supply and demand fundamentals in our core markets.”
The company anticipates its fourth quarter operating income for Ocean Transportation to be $100 million to $105 million and Logistics operating income to be $8 million to $9 million. Net income and diluted EPS for the fourth quarter is expected to be $76.1 to $81.6 million and $1.74 to $1.87, respectively, according to Matson.