August 20, 2025
Port of Hamburg records strong growth in container throughput in the first half of the year
Despite continued subdued economic development and a tense geopolitical situation, the Port of Hamburg is showing stable growth and regained market share in the first half of 2025.
Strong growth in the container segment in the first half of 2025 contributed significantly to a solid increase in seaborne cargo throughput. Container throughput increases by 9.3 percent to 4.2 million TEUs.
Conventional general cargo throughput and bulk cargo throughput (-3.7 percent to 0.6 million tonnes and -3.8 percent to 16.0 million tonnes respectively) fell slightly in the first six months of the current year.
There was an increase to 4.7 million tonnes (+10.3 percent) in the liquid cargo segment, but reductions in the grabbable cargo (-6.6 percent to 8.5 million tonnes) and agricultural goods (-13.9 percent to 2.9 million tonnes) segments.
The declining demand for coal and ore had a renewed impact on the throughput of grabbable goods. In the agribulk sector, significantly lower grain exports (-80.8 percent to 852,000 tonnes) impacted the result, despite rising imports of oilseed crops (+8.9 percent to 1.7 million tonnes).
Compared to the same period last year, a total of 0.7 percent more ships with capacity for container cargo called at the Port of Hamburg. The number of calls by large container ships with capacity for more than 10,000 TEU rose sharply again across all size classes (+51.6 percent to 285). Calls by ship units with capacities exceeding 24,000 TEU also recorded significant growth once again compared to the first half of 2024 (+29.6 percent to 127).
Source: Port of Hamburg