Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased 36.2 per cent year on year to $617 million in 2019.

The average freight rate of $1,072 per TEU was up by 2.7 per cent over the previous year due to a stronger focus on more profitable trade lanes and active revenue management, the company said.

The 1.4 per cent year-on-year increase in transport volumes, to more than 12 million TEU, also made a positive contribution to revenues.

Lower expenses for the handling and inland haulage of containers, a slightly lower average bunker consumption price of $416 per tonne as well as the first-time application of IFRS 16 had a positive effect on transport expenses, which amounted to $10.9 billion.

Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen was confident about the shipping industry emerging from the COVID-19 crisis in better shape than it did following the 2008/9 financial crisis.

"Today we are in rapidly changing and uncertain times, but that does not take away that 2019 was a very good year for Hapag-Lloyd," he said.

"This crisis today is very different. One of the things that could actually help us there is the orderbook is at pretty much an all-time low of around 10 per cent of the global fleet, which is very different than the 50-60 per cent we used to see 12 years ago when we got into the financial crisis," he said.

"A lot of supply came in during the years after that when demand was slowly starting to recover. We believe that will be different now," said Mr Habben Jansen.

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