Shanghai Containerized Freight Index
Analyst
Please turn to the next slide. Within our Domestic tradelaness, we continue to see economic growth in Hawaii, Alaska, and Guan. In Hawaii, domestic tourism was strong in the first nine months of the year, and International tourist arrivals picked up a bit in this past quarter, but total arrivals are still below pre-pandemic highs. UHERO is projecting Hawaii visitor arrivals for 2022 to be 90% of the pre-pandemic high in 2019, increasing to 95% in 2023. The strong recovery in Hawaii's tourism industry has led to a rapid decline in the unemployment rate and the labor market remains tight. In Alaska, we continue to expect the Alaska economy to benefit from increased energy related exploration and production activity as a result of elevated oil prices. Consumer demand continues to remain strong in the state, supported by a low unemployment rate, job growth, and wage growth. In September, the state announced a record permanent fund dividend to residents, which is expected to lead to good consumption in the near-term. And in Guam, the economy continues to recover from the pandemic low despite the slow return of tourism. The unemployment rate continues to improve and tourism has increased since the beginning of the year, but remains well below pre-pandemic levels. Excuse me. We expect further improvement in tourism arrivals from Asia to support the local economy, but the timing remains unclear. While there are positive drivers supporting further growth in our core domestic markets, weakening economic conditions in the U.S. and global economies could negatively affect tourism and consumer spending. In addition, the combination of higher inflation, higher interest rates and lower personal income with the end of the pandemic-era stimulus is likely having a negative impact on household income and consequently consumer goods demand. In Logistics, we continue to see a solid level of activity at Span Alaska consistent with our Alaska tradelane business. Our transportation brokerage business continued to perform above expectations, but is seeing softer freight volumes due to higher customer inventory levels, softness and truckload spot market rate, and other macroeconomic trends. Lastly, our supply chain business is trending consistent with the demand for our China service. I'll now go through the third quarter performance of our tradelanes, SSAT and Logistics, so please turn to the next slide. Hawaii container volume for the third quarter decreased 7.1% year-over-year, primarily due to lower retail related demand. The year-over-year decline was impacted by the difficult comparison to the pandemic demand spike in the year ago period. Volume in the third quarter of 2022 was 2.7% higher than the volume achieved in 2019. The Hawaii economy continued to show growth in the quarter, supported by strong domestic tourist arrivals and unemployment rate that remained near the pandemic lows. Moving to our China service on Slide 7, Matson's volume in the third quarter of 2022 was 15.1% lower year-over-year due to lower demand for our CLX, CLX+ and CCX services and one less sailing. Matson continued to realize a significant rate premium over the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index in the third quarter of 2022 and achieved average freight rates that were higher than in a year ago period. For the fourth quarter of 2022, we expect lower year-over-year volume. As I mentioned previously, we ended our temporary CCX service in early September, so there'll be no contribution from this service in the fourth quarter. Turning to Slide 8, in Guam, Matson's container volume in the third quarter of 2022 decreased 1.8% year-over-year. The decrease was primarily due to the lower retail related demand. Volume in the third quarter of 2022 was higher than the level achieved in the third quarter of 2019. Please turn to Slide 9. In Alaska, maximum container volume for the third quarter 2022 increased 10.6% year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to higher export seafood volume from the AAX service, higher northbound volume due to higher retail related demand, and volume related to a competitor's dry docking, and higher southbound volume, primarily due to higher domestic seafood volume. Turning next to Slide 10, our terminal venture, our terminal joint venture, SSAT contributed $23.4 million in the third quarter, 2022 to $13 million in the prior year period. The higher contribution was primarily a result of higher other terminal revenue. Turning now to Logistics on Slide 11, operating income in the third quarter came in at $20.1 million or $4.1 million higher than the result in the year ago period. The increase was primarily due to higher contributions from all services as we continued to see favorable supply and demand fundamentals in our core markets. And with that, I will turn the call over to Joel for a review of our financial performance.