Hyundai Merchant Marine Co., a major shipping firm here, said Monday that its loss widened in the first quarter from the previous quarter largely due to lower freight rates.

Net loss reached 735 billion won ($653 million) in the January-March period, compared with an operating loss of 276 billion won in the three-month period a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Operating losses reached 131 billion won in the first quarter, narrowing from an operating loss of 163 billion won the previous year, while sales rose 7 percent on-year to 1.3 trillion won over the cited period, it said.

Hyundai Merchant handled 958,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers in the first quarter, up 37 percent from a year earlier, with shipments to the American and Asian regions spiking 41.4 percent and 62.4 percent on-year during the cited period, it added.

Hyundai Merchant expects freight rates to improve down the road on seasonal factors.

“Entering the third and fourth quarters of the year, we will see an improvement (in the company’s performance),” Hyundai Merchant chief executive Yoo Chang-keun said in a press briefing.

The top executive said Hyundai Merchant’s stable profit is eyed next year on the back of improved business conditions, reduced costs and realigned routes.

Hyundai Merchant was trading at 8,910 won on the Seoul bourse as of 11:15 a.m., down 2.62 percent from the previous session’s close.

Source: Yonhap