Shipping giant Maersk raises outlook, CEO says global trade proving more resilient than feared

Danish shipping giant Maersk on Thursday posted stronger-than-expected third-quarter operating profit and raised the lower-end of its full-year guidance, bolstered by increasing container volumes.

The company, widely regarded as a barometer of global trade, reported preliminary underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $2.68 billion for the July-September period.

That's above the $2.6 billion expected by analysts in an LSEG-compiled consensus but down sharply from $4.8 billion over the same period a year earlier.

Maersk also raised its full-year operating profit forecast to between $9 billion and $9.5 billion, up from previous guidance of $8 billion to $9.5 billion.

"I think what allowed us to raise the guidance was really a story of resilience," Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Thursday.

"Resilience of demand across all geographies with, towards the end of the quarter, even the U.S. picking up again as we move towards the seasonal year-end peak," Clerc said.

"And resilience also in our operations where despite a lot of inflationary pressure and a lot of uncertainty, we've been able to trim costs and keep our costs under control and thus lift margins across all of the businesses," he added.

Shares of the company fell more than 6% on Thursday morning. The stock price is up roughly 5% year-to-date.

Alongside a revision to its full-year operating profit, Maersk said it expects global container market volumes to grow by around 4% in 2025, up from its prior forecast of between 2% to 4%.

When asked how Maersk would characterize the global trade outlook, Clerc said it appears as though talk about the death of globalization has been "quite premature."

"We see, to the contrary, that the level of trade and the integration of the economies is growing and the main engine behind this is actually the strength of the manufacturing powerhouse that is China and that continues to see growth across multiple regions," Clerc said.

"This has been the story mostly for the last two years and has been one of the reasons why we've kept on being surprised by the strength and resilience of demand across all the products that we're doing."