Profits for the booming container ship industry have more than doubled in the second quarter while posting seven consecutive quarters of record earnings, according to a financial advisor focused on the sector. The industry posted a “mind-altering” $63.7bn in net income for the three-month period, versus $28.6bn recorded during the same period last year, according to estimates by Blue Alpha Capital founder and former liner industry executive John McCown. “With stair-step increases over the last two years, this is the seventh straight quarter of record earnings,” he wrote in his latest McCown Container Results Observer report. “The container shipping industry has literally gone from being near or at the bottom in terms of overall industry performance to at or near the top in terms of overall industry performance.”

He estimated total sector earnings by figuring that total teu capacity for the 11 highest-earning liner operators made up 64.5% of total sector capacity and then assumed remaining owners had similar per-teu earnings. McCown forecast that total sector earnings will total $245bn, up 65.2% from total profits made in 2021, due to liner operators blanking sailings due to short supply. “The folks who focus on spot rates and are predicting a near-term earnings collapse are substituting narrative for analysis and will be proven wrong,” he said. “We may be at or near the peak, but no earnings collapse is imminent. A key tool to watch that the industry has new appreciation for is blanking sailings.”

He said that the frequency of blank sailings will slowly diminish as pandemic-driven port congestion eases, but liner operators may keep blanking them to keep supply down and prevent freight rates from falling. The pandemic caused sector earnings to skyrocket to unprecedented levels as supply-chain disruption and increased demand for consumer goods caused boxship demand to reach never-seen-before levels. McCown noted that the container shipping profits have been higher than combined profits at multibillion-dollar internet technology companies Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google, collectively known as FANG, over the previous two quarters.

How much higher? According to McCown’s analysis, the sector’s profits were 14% higher than FANG’s earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021, 103% higher for the first three months of 2022 and 145% higher than this year’s second quarter. In his report, McCown put Maersk as the top-earning liner operator, making $8.17bn for the second quarter against $3.36bn a year ago. Maersk also made the most total profit since the first quarter of 2016 by taking in $35.5bn in total profit over that time, according to McCown’s figures. CMA CGM posted the second highest profit for the second quarter at $7.6bn against $3.48bn a year earlier. Its earnings since 2016 came in at a second-highest amount of $34.3bn. Cosco Shipping Lines came in third place on the list. The Chinese operator made $5.52bn in the second quarter, compared to $3.35bn in the same time frame in 2021. Its total profit since 2016 totaled $24.4bn.