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ContainerSignal Daily: ZIM lifts 2026 outlook on stronger rates

By Toni Tan · · 12 min read

ZIM Integrated Shipping Services has raised its full-year 2026 earnings guidance on stronger freight rates and continued demand, adding US$650m to the midpoint of both its adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBIT forecasts. The upgrade is the latest in a run of raised outlooks from the major carriers, and it lands while spot rates on the Asia to Europe trades are still falling, which points to carriers banking rate gains won earlier in the year rather than a fresh turn in the market.

Two developments on the routes carry the day. Sea Legend Shipping completed all eight planned sailings of its China to Europe Arctic container service for the season, and casualties in the Strait of Hormuz reached a new high for this year’s attacks on commercial shipping. At the ports, India’s largest container gateway said it has cleared a congestion spike, and it confirmed a shore power financing deal.

Today’s Signals

Freight Rates

Container News’s roundup of the container indexes, published on 5 October, reports the China Containerized Freight Index up about 0.3% to 1,923.93 points from 1,917.68, and the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index down 0.66% to 3,662.30 points from 3,686.62. The publication gives both as its latest weekly readings; it does not date the underlying observations.

The same roundup reports the NYSHEX Freight Index (NYFI) showing the transatlantic moving against the trend, westbound up 9.20% to 2,723.29 and eastbound up 7.25% to 1,184.57. On the main headhaul lanes, Asia to the US West Coast rose 1.89% to 7,557.37, a much smaller gain than the 4.82% recorded in the previous reading, and Asia to the US East Coast was almost unchanged, up 0.03% to 9,695.31, after a 5.75% rise the week before. Asia to North Europe fell another 3.58% to 3,468.58.

Drewry’s World Container Index declined 1% to US$4,434 per 40ft container in its 1 October assessment, and the firm notes that Asia to Europe spot rates have now declined for 12 consecutive weeks. Container freight rate indexes explained sets out how each benchmark is compiled and why their readings can diverge.

Carrier Updates

ZIM now expects adjusted EBITDA of US$2.7 billion to US$3.0 billion for 2026, against US$2.0 billion to US$2.4 billion previously, and adjusted EBIT of US$1.4 billion to US$1.7 billion, against US$700m to US$1.1 billion, WorldCargo News reports. The company says the midpoints of the new ranges are 30% higher for adjusted EBITDA and 72% higher for adjusted EBIT than the guidance it gave on 19 August with its second-quarter results.

ZIM is not alone in upgrading. WorldCargo News lists the same pattern across the majors, all of them company guidance rather than audited results: Hapag-Lloyd has raised 2026 EBITDA guidance to US$3.9 billion to US$4.4 billion from US$2.7 billion to US$3.7 billion; Ocean Network Express has tripled its full-year net profit forecast to around US$900m from US$300m; and Maersk has lifted underlying EBITDA guidance to US$10.5 billion to US$12.5 billion from US$8 billion to US$10 billion.

The ZIM upgrade comes with the Hapag-Lloyd acquisition still unresolved. WorldCargo News reports that Hapag-Lloyd and its Israeli partner FIMI Opportunity Funds submitted the key points of an improved proposal to the Israeli government on 24 September, built around establishing ZIM Israel as a standalone Israeli-owned operator with its own core fleet, access to Hapag-Lloyd tonnage under a long-term commercial agreement and a direct Asia service. The parties said they would spend the following 45 days finalising the business plan and legal framework. The publication says the additional regulatory process makes a 2027 completion increasingly likely, against an initial expectation of closing by the end of 2026.

Ports

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority says traffic across its five container terminals returned to normal from the morning of Sunday 4 October, after a burst of export cargo met a simultaneous bunching of vessels, PTI reports via Rediff Moneynews. The authority says more than 15 vessels arrived at terminal gates around the same time, and daily quay-side handling reached 35,307 TEU on 4 October and 32,972 TEU on 5 October, against its standard daily benchmark. Gate movements reached 21,796 TEU (18,391 trucks) on 2 October and 20,684 TEU (17,535 trucks) on 3 October. Yard inventory fell from a peak of 120,173 TEU, at 66.89% occupancy, on 2 October to 94,519 TEU, at 52.61%, by 6 October, and average truck turnaround was down to 1.47 hours port-wide. These are figures the port authority published about its own operations.

JNPA has also secured a US$70m loan from the International Finance Corporation to develop shore power infrastructure across its terminals, which the two organisations describe as India’s first blue financing framework for the maritime sector, WorldCargo News reports. JNPA operates five container terminals and handles around 10.4m TEU a year. The project is targeted for completion by January 2028 and is expected to supply about 119,084 MWh of electricity annually and avoid roughly 71,000 tonnes of CO2e from vessel auxiliary engines. Shore power is a port-side emissions measure; emissions from vessels themselves are priced separately in Europe under the EU Emissions Trading System for shipping.

Hambantota International Port in Sri Lanka has passed 1m TEU in cumulative container throughput, WorldCargo News reports, with throughput rising from 53,170 TEU in 2024 to 428,036 TEU in 2025 and a further 574,196 TEU so far in 2026. MSC is the port’s main container customer. The port, owned by the Sri Lankan government and China Merchants Port Holdings, has committed US$108m to six additional ship-to-shore cranes, 16 electric rubber-tyred gantries and 40 trailers from ZPMC, due in early 2027.

Container News reports that the planned night-time closure of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal has been revoked following consultations between Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch infrastructure ministry, the Port of Amsterdam and inland navigation bodies. Large vessels and vessels carrying dangerous goods will continue to use the canal at night, subject to additional safety measures. The canal is a main inland link for barge traffic to and from the port.

Trade Routes

Sea Legend Shipping completed all eight planned weekly westbound sailings of its China to Europe Arctic Express for the 2026 season, gCaptain reports, ending departures slightly earlier than scheduled after forecasts pointed to expanding Arctic sea ice in October. The service was launched in August with seven ice-strengthened container ships, running from Ningbo-Zhoushan and other Chinese ports. The eight voyages carried more than 14,000 TEU of export cargo, according to preliminary figures reported by Zhejiang authorities, of which Zhejiang-origin cargo accounted for about 59%, or more than 8,300 TEU.

Ningbo Customs separately recorded 7,761 TEU through its jurisdiction, worth 5.33 billion yuan (about US$750m), dominated by energy-storage equipment, power batteries and new-energy vehicles. Sea Legend’s published schedule called for about 15,700 TEU of total vessel capacity across the eight voyages, with Istanbul Bridge the largest at 4,890 TEU. Chinese transport authorities put the Arctic route at about 18 to 20 days between China and Northern Europe, roughly half the transit time of routes via the Suez Canal. The service is explicitly seasonal, with the normal navigation window running roughly from July to October, and Sea Legend says it intends to resume next summer. How capacity and vessel size are classified is covered in how container ships are sized.

In the Strait of Hormuz, twelve seafarers were injured when a Panama-flagged oil tanker was struck by a projectile, gCaptain reports, citing India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The vessel was the Aframax tanker On Peace (IMO 9893204), carrying 19 crew including 17 Indian nationals, and eleven of the injured are Indian. The injured were evacuated with assistance from Omani authorities to Khasab. India did not identify who carried out the attack. The incident appears connected to a UKMTO warning of a projectile strike on 5 October that caused an engine-room fire, although the link has not been formally confirmed.

The attacks this week have hit tankers and gas carriers rather than container ships, so none of them changes container capacity directly. For liner operators the exposure is indirect but real: war risk premium and insurance conditions attached to Gulf and Middle East routings, which carriers recover through surcharges on affected cargo, the same cost line that has widened since the Hormuz disruption began in late February.

Regulation & Policy

India has scrapped a licensing requirement for vessels chartered by foreign carriers through entities registered in Gujarat’s GIFT City business district, The Loadstar reports. The publication says six vessels have been reflagged in India by CMA CGM and two by Maersk, and that MSC and Hapag-Lloyd have signalled they will follow. India has also extended its cabotage waiver for foreign vessels, which lets foreign lines move transhipment cargo and empty boxes between Indian ports, while coastal trades remain reserved for locally registered tonnage. The government decision is the primary instrument; The Loadstar is the reporting source here.

South Africa’s cabinet has backed separating Transnet National Ports Authority from its parent group Transnet to create a standalone company owned directly by the state, WorldCargo News reports. That report is behind a subscription, and the publication’s summary states no timetable or scope, so no further detail is given here.

What It Means

For shippers, the earnings upgrades and the rate data point in opposite directions. Carriers are locking in the elevated rates they won in the second and third quarters, and their guidance now assumes enough of that strength holds through the rest of the year, which is why they are pressing FAK increases for late October. The spot market underneath is softer: Asia to Europe has fallen for 12 consecutive weeks, and the transatlantic is the one main trade still clearly moving up. Contracts being negotiated now sit on the falling side of that split.

On the routes, the Arctic season closing out underlines that the Northern Sea Route is still a seasonal niche rather than a Suez substitute. Eight sailings carried just over 14,000 TEU for an entire season, a fraction of a single week’s Asia to Europe volumes, and the window runs roughly July to October. Its value is in high-value, time-sensitive cargo rather than displacing the main east-west lanes. The levers that actually change effective capacity on the bulk trades are the tonnage returning to Suez and the Panama Canal’s booking regime, part of the tension we examined in Asia-Europe rates fall even as the container network stays tight.

At the ports, the JNPA episode is a reminder that congestion at Indian and South Asian gateways is now driven as much by demand surges and landside flow as by vessel waiting. JNPA cleared its spike in days through gate automation and faster import evacuation, and Hambantota’s growth, with MSC as its main customer, points to the second-tier South Asian transhipment capacity carriers are using alongside Colombo. Empty container return discipline and truck appointment systems remain the weak links that decide whether a busy week becomes a delay.

Sources

Background reading

The explainers behind today's stories, if you want the fundamentals first.

Asia-Europe rates fall even as the container network stays tight

Asia-Europe spot rates fell for a twelfth week while intra-Asia set another record and mid-size tonnage ran scarce. The two readings measure different layers.

Asia-Europe spot rates extend their fall as Transpacific gains stall

Drewry's World Container Index fell 1% to US$4,434 per 40ft in the week to 1 October, Asia-Europe's twelfth weekly decline, while Transpacific gains slowed.

What is the EU Emissions Trading System for shipping?

The EU ETS puts a carbon price on ships of 5,000 GT and above calling at EU ports. What container carriers must surrender, and what it costs shippers.

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