“Revenue for the period under review rose by 1.9% to RM552.99 million compared with RM542.64 million posted a year ago,” the port operator said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.
Net profit increased 7.9% to RM408.26 million from RM378.35 million for the first half of FY2024 (H1 2024), while revenue advanced 3.8% to RM1.1 billion from RM1.06 billion.
Westports attributed the higher performance to an increase in container revenue.
It also declared its first interim single-tier dividend of 8.89 sen per share for the financial year ending Dec 31.
Westports said intra-Asia trade continues to be significant for the group.
“Coupled with the ongoing tension in the Middle East affecting the global supply chain, it cumulatively builds up towards congestion in regional container ports,” it added.
Westports also stated that the intra-Asia regional trade underpinned its container volume growth, as this trade lane accounted for 65% of the containers handled.
“The ongoing regional port congestion and global supply chain disruptions could influence the overall volume throughput.
“As such, we maintain our cautious expectation of a low single-digit growth rate for this year over the previous year,” it said.
Westports noted that in the conventional segment, it handled bulk cargoes amounting to 5.68 million tonnes, which will support domestic economic activities as the greater throughput was for project cargoes, ingots, coils and soybeans, among others.
On port congestion issues, executive chairman and group managing director Ruben Emir Gnanalingam Abdullah said the regional port congestion has eased.
“The experience highlighted the interconnectedness of Southeast Asia container shipping hubs, like Port Klang and Singapore.
“It underscored the importance of having multiple ports to handle the growing regional trade as they work in tandem, to ensure the resilience and reliability of the overall regional and global supply chains,” he said.
As at 5pm, Westports’s share price was down by seven sen or 1.52% at RM4.53, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM15.45 billion.