COSCO SHIPPING Ports rides 19% overseas volume surge to $484m quarter

COSCO SHIPPING Ports grew third-quarter 2026 revenue by 13% to US$484.3 million, and the growth engine sat almost entirely outside China. Overseas terminals pushed volumes up 19.4% to 11.32 million TEU — more than twice the pace of the group's domestic network.

Gross profit rose 19.3% to US$128.1 million, with operating profit at US$81 million. Profit attributable to shareholders barely moved, though: US$82.6 million against US$82.5 million a year earlier. The top line grew; the bottom line marked time.

The nine-month picture is kinder. Revenue climbed 12.6% to US$1.39 billion, and shareholders' profit rose 19.7% to US$316.3 million. So the quarter's flat earnings look more like a pause than a pattern.

Where the boxes actually moved

Total throughput across the full terminal portfolio rose 8.4% to 42.27 million TEU in the quarter; equity throughput gained 8.1% to 12.88 million TEU. A note on the numbers: the quarterly filing includes terminals left out of the company's regular monthly statistics, which is why it beats the 32.6 million TEU figure Container News previously reported for Q3.

The overseas standouts:

• Piraeus Container Terminal (Greece): up 11.4% to 1.09 million TEU
• CSP Chancay (Peru): up 24.9% to 139,669 TEU
• Suez Canal Container Terminal (Egypt): up 8.4% to 1.66 million TEU
• Red Sea Gateway Terminal (Saudi Arabia): up 19.8% to 899,226 TEU
• Antwerp Gateway (Belgium): up 16.3% to 684,232 TEU

One outlier stings. CSP Abu Dhabi Terminal collapsed 76.4% to 97,734 TEU — a fall the filing does not explain, but one that will raise eyebrows among Gulf-route planners.

China still carries the weight

Domestic terminals handled 30.94 million TEU, up 4.9%, and still account for 73.2% of group throughput. Overseas terminals, for comparison, now contribute 26.8%.

Within China, the Bohai Rim led in absolute terms at 14.12 million TEU, up 4.3%. Pearl River Delta volumes rose 7.6% to 8.3 million TEU. The Southeast Coast gained 7.6% to 1.51 million TEU and the Southwest Coast 7.3% to 2.67 million TEU.

The Yangtze River Delta was the only region going backwards — down 0.3% to 4.34 million TEU. Modest, but a decline is a decline.

Across the first nine months of 2026, the full portfolio handled 122.42 million TEU, up 8.1% year on year.

What does this change for shippers and carriers?

Mainly, it signals where COSCO SHIPPING Ports will spend next. The company says it will keep pursuing controlling interests in strategic hub ports and equity stakes in key gateway facilities, and it plans to reinforce its terminal network along the Suez Canal route as traffic recovers.

That's a concrete commitment to the Mediterranean–Red Sea corridor, where Piraeus, Suez and the Red Sea Gateway are all growing at once. Carriers calling at COSCO-controlled facilities there should expect continued investment; forwarders routing Asia–Europe cargo through those hubs get a landlord with an obvious incentive to keep dwell times competitive.

The Abu Dhabi outlier aside, the geography of this growth tells its own story. Nearly three-quarters of the boxes remain Chinese, but the incremental volume — the part that moved the revenue line 13% — came from Piraeus, Antwerp, Jeddah and Chancay. If the Suez rebuild continues on this trajectory, expect the overseas share to keep climbing through 2027.