Carriers lift 2026 guidance as spot rates ease
Three publications between 29 June and 28 July have moved the assumptions underlying the current year: Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd raised full-year guidance, and CMA CGM reported a second quarter of $15.7bn. The revisions land while spot indices have been falling for three weeks. For Cameroon, the most tangible consequence sits in a single line of the CMA CGM release — the WAX 1 service is now operated directly by the group, and Kribi is on its rotation.
Blue Star Media — Daily Brief · Tuesday 4 August 2026
A cycle corrected by the people who run it
On 29 June 2026 Maersk raised its full-year underlying EBITDA guidance to a range of $8bn to $10bn, from $4.5bn to $7bn. Underlying EBIT moved to $2-4bn, from a range that ran from a $1.5bn loss to a $1bn profit. The group also lifted its forecast for global container volume growth to about 4%, from 2-4%.
Hapag-Lloyd did the same, taking 2026 EBITDA guidance to $2.7-3.7bn from $1.1-3.1bn and EBIT to $0.1-1.1bn from a range that had included a loss. The carrier attached an explicit caveat on freight-rate volatility and the geopolitical environment.
These moves should be read for what they are. They do not signal a better long-run outlook for container shipping; they correct January assumptions that proved cautious. The industry entered 2026 expecting rate pressure that first-half demand did not deliver.
CMA CGM then supplied the scale of it. The 28 July release reports second-quarter revenue of $15.7bn, up 19.2% year on year, EBITDA of $3.0bn, up 31%, and a 19% margin, 1.7 points higher. Shipping accounts for most of it: 6.3m TEU carried (+6%), $10.0bn of revenue (+22%) and average revenue per TEU of $1,575, up 15.1%. The shipping EBITDA margin reached 22.7%, up 3.3 points. Logistics moved the other way — EBITDA down 15.4% to $388m, with the group pointing to pressure on freight forwarding and continued difficulty in the automotive sector.
What a direct call changes for Kribi
The Cameroon angle appears in the release itself. CMA CGM says it continued to expand in West Africa with the inauguration of its regional office in Abidjan and the first call of the CMA CGM ZEPHYR on the WAX 1 service, "now operated directly by the Group". The published rotation runs Qingdao, Ningbo, Nansha, Shekou, Singapore and Colombo to Abidjan, Lekki and Kribi, returning via Vung Tau.
What matters to a Cameroonian shipper is the absence of transhipment. An Asia rotation that calls at Kribi directly removes one handling step and the waiting time that comes with it. The carrier quotes a six-day saving between Ningbo and Abidjan and up to nine days from Qingdao; those figures come from the carrier and have not been independently verified. No equivalent figure has been published for the Kribi call.
The lead vessel, CMA CGM ZEPHYR, is quoted at roughly 15,000 TEU. That per-ship capacity is of a different order from the regional West Africa loops opened in recent months, whose vessels run between 2,500 and 5,000 TEU. The gap follows from the water depth and handling capacity available at the ports on the string. It is not a matter of commercial preference but of physical constraint.
The counterpoint: price and supply
Drewry's World Container Index stood at $4,255 per 40ft container on 30 July 2026, down 3% week on week — a third consecutive weekly decline. On the reference lanes, Shanghai-Genoa fell 6% to $5,630 and Shanghai-Rotterdam 3% to $4,677; Shanghai-Los Angeles slipped 2% to $5,739. The published results therefore describe a quarter already closed, not the market conditions prevailing when they were released.
Supply remains the open question. Alphaliner put the containership orderbook at 12.98m TEU across 1,592 vessels in June 2026, equal to 38.3% of the fleet in service. A substantial share of that capacity will be delivered regardless of where rates sit, and it remains the clearest identifiable correction factor over the medium term.
What to take away
The Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd upgrades correct start-of-year assumptions. They say nothing about the cycle beyond 2026.
CMA CGM's accounts show the performance came from unit revenue ($1,575 per TEU, +15.1%) as much as from volume (+6%).
For a Cameroonian exporter the reading is twofold: the direct Kribi call via WAX 1 is structural and survives the cycle; the freight rate is not.
Next verification point: Maersk's second-quarter accounts, due 13 August 2026.
Sources
CMA CGM, Q2 2026 results (release, 28 July 2026); Maersk, full-year guidance upgrade (29 June 2026); Hapag-Lloyd, ad hoc guidance revision; Drewry World Container Index (30 July 2026); Alphaliner (June 2026); Container News and Logistics Manager (WAX service structure); Agence Ecofin; Business in Cameroon.
Blue Star Media — Division III of Blue Star Company Ltd · Stories that Move [email protected] · consulting.bluestargroup.africa · WhatsApp +237 690 157 406