Articles/Operator's read

ZIM raises its 2026 earnings forecast by up to $700 million

Is this September's cargo already on the water, or a bet on the fourth quarter?

About 65% of ZIM's transpacific volume moves at spot rates. That is how a rate rise reaches its accounts within weeks, and a fall would travel the same way.

Portside Report·8 Oct 2026·3 min

Executive summary

ZIM, the Israeli container line, raised its 2026 earnings forecast by $600 million to $700 million, seven weeks after setting it. About two-thirds of its transpacific cargo pays short-term rates, so the price rises of late summer reached its accounts within weeks. The same link works in reverse, and on US trades a rate cut needs no notice.

ZIM, the Israeli container line, raised its 2026 earnings guidance on 6 October. It now expects adjusted EBITDA of $2.7 billion to $3.0 billion, against $2.0 billion to $2.4 billion before. The range it replaced was seven weeks old. ZIM gave one reason: strong demand and rising freight rates.

So how does a full-year number move by $600 million to $700 million in seven weeks? The answer is in how ZIM sells its Pacific space. In May it said about 65% of its transpacific volume was exposed to spot rates. In the second quarter the Pacific was 46% of everything it carried. Put the two together. Close to 30% of everything ZIM lifts is transpacific cargo at short-term prices.

That market kept rising after the August guidance. Drewry's World Container Index had Shanghai to Los Angeles at $6,802 per 40ft container on 20 August. On 1 October it was $7,835, which is 15% higher.

The increases themselves were no surprise. Under the US Shipping Act, a tariff rate increase cannot take effect until 30 days after it is published. Anything effective in the first half of September was therefore on file before ZIM guided on 19 August. What nobody could know then was whether it would be collected. In August those increases were announcements. By October they were invoices.

The way down is shorter. Under the same US rule, a rate decrease takes effect on the day it is published.

Drewry expected transpacific rates to fall in the week after 1 October, over China's Golden Week holiday. ZIM raised its range that same week. The two fit together if much of the revision is cargo already loaded. A box from Shanghai takes about two weeks to reach the US West Coast and about a month to reach the East Coast. Carriers book the freight as the voyage progresses. So cargo loaded at late-September prices is still arriving in the accounts in October and November.

The first quarter shows what a lower rate does to this network. ZIM's average freight rate was $1,310 per TEU. At that rate it made an adjusted EBIT loss of $5 million.

ZIM has not said how much of the new range rests on November and December.

I would read the third-quarter release for one number, the average freight rate per TEU. In the second quarter it was $1,590. By rough arithmetic the range needs a second-half average of about $2,100 or more. If the third quarter delivers most of the second-half figure, the upgrade was September's cargo. If it does not, the range rests on a fourth quarter that opened with spot rates expected to fall.