"Matson finished off a strong year with continued improvement in economic and business trends in our markets driving solid performance in both ocean transportation and logistics," said chairman and CEO Matt Cox.

Matson is leading US shipping company in the Pacific trade, with services to Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Micronesia, the South Pacific, China and Japan.

Mr Cox said significant demand within the company's expedited China service was the primary driver for an increase in operating income year on year.

Like others in the liner sector, Matson has benefitted from soaring freight rates amid record US imports and congestion in the supply chain.

"Supply chain congestion remains the current issue in the transpacific tradelane due to ongoing elevated consumption trends, US domestic supply chain constraints and inventory restocking," said Mr Cox.

"For 2022, we expect these conditions to remain largely in place through at least the October peak season and expect elevated demand for our China service for most of the year."

Container volume in Matson's Hawaii service in the fourth quarter was 10.4 per cent higher year on year. In China, volume increased 32.7 per cent, with nine more eastbound voyages on the company's China-California Express service in 2021 than in 2020.

"In our domestic ocean tradelanes, we continued to see strong demand with higher year-on-year volumes, including the benefit of an extra week, compared to the largely pandemic-reduced volumes in the year ago period," he said.

"In Hawaii, we experienced elevated westbound freight demand as the state's tourism and economy continued to rebound from the pandemic lows and the slowdown in tourism at the beginning of the quarter as a result of the state's efforts to address the spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant.

"In logistics, operating income increased year on year compared to the operating income achieved in the year ago period as we continued to see elevated goods consumption, inventory restocking and favourable supply and demand fundamentals in our core markets."

 

 

 

In releasing its results, Matson also announced the repurchase of a million shares in the fourth quarter, bringing its full year repurchases to 2.5 million shares.