Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this earnings call today as we present our third quarter results for 2025. My name is Vincent Clerc. I'm the CEO of A.P. Møller - Maersk, and with me in the room today is our CFO, Patrick Jany. As usual, we start with the highlights of the quarter just passed. We are pleased with the strong execution shown during the quarter in all businesses. We improved our performance across the board and delivered on an EBITDA of $2.7 billion and an EBIT of $1.3 billion, up from the previous quarter. All segments showed strong sequential volume progression, while costs were kept under tight control. These efforts paved the way for the strong results, notwithstanding the external environment.
Specifically, in Logistics & Services, we are staying the course, focusing on operational margin improvements on both prior year and quarter to maintain the streak of good progress in 2025. We also registered good underlying and seasonal volume growth, which more than offset the softening observed in North America. For Ocean, this third quarter was the first full and clean quarter of the Gemini network. While we kept delivering reliability at 90+%, we also generated cost benefits well above the target we had communicated. This excellent performance was supported by strong volumes and high asset utilization, as well as asset turns. As expected, rates softened during the period as new capacity continued to be inflated ahead of demand.
Finally, our terminal business delivered again record high revenues and profitability driven by strong volumes, not least the ones delivered as a consequence of the Gemini implementation and the highest ever utilization across our portfolio of gateway terminals. With another quarter of sustained high demand, especially out of China, we expect the market growth around 4% for the full year. This strong demand, combined with the successful implementation of Gemini and progress across all segments, allows us to narrow the full year 2025 guidance to an underlying EBIT of between $3 billion- $3.5 billion. As usual, more details will follow on this later in the call. Now, taking a closer look at each of our business segments. First, Logistics & Services continued to track positively. We achieved an EBIT margin of 5.5%, up from 5.1% last year and 4.8% last quarter.
The key levers of progress remain asset utilization, productivity improvement, and stringent cost management. Aside from these efforts, the top line also grew 2% year -on- year and 9% sequentially, the latter reflecting both seasonal strength and new wind implementation, which offset the softening of demand in North America. In Ocean, as mentioned, we had our first full and clean quarter of Gemini after the Gemini implementation. From already the first month since the implementation in February, we have seen the network deliver reliability above 90% and show resilience against disruptions such as weather, which we have seen recently in the Far East with the worst typhoon season in 10 years. Meanwhile, we continue to deliver 90%+ reliability in the third quarter, and we also achieved significant cost savings even compared to the ambitious target we had communicated to you earlier this year.
I will go into more details on this very shortly. What Gemini has allowed us to do with these savings is to use our fleet more efficiently and capture more volumes. Our volumes are up 7% year-on- year and 5% sequentially for this quarter, while the average loaded freight rate was more or less in line with the prior quarter. Good volume development has also driven high utilization of 94% for the quarter, up 0.5 percentage points sequentially. All of this happened against the backdrop of decreasing rates, as expected. In Terminals, we deliver another excellent quarter driven by record on. Volumes, revenue, EBITDA, and EBIT. What we had not talked about so much until recently is the volume uplift in our gateway terminals from Gemini, which has been a key contributor to our performance this quarter. Return on invested capital has delivered a further uptick to 17.2%.
Here we note that with utilization close to 90%, we are approaching the full potential at which operations in some of our locations become less efficient and volume growth opportunities become more limited in the short term. We continue to invest to debottleneck our existing terminals as well as grow with new locations, as exemplified by the inauguration of Rijeka terminal in Croatia less than two weeks ago and several other projects in the pipeline. Turning to our midterm target, as you can see, we have shown almost full delivery on our 2021 commitment. As mentioned, we continue to stay the course of regular progress in Logistics & Services, which is tracking positively with EBIT margin up both year-on- year and sequentially. Although more needs to be done on that field.
We continue to make good operational progress with our challenge products of air, middle mile, and last mile, while seeing good revenue growth in our other products more in line with our organic revenue growth targets. Our priority is to continue to improve in the fourth quarter as we round off the relevant period of these targets. Taking a step back from this quarter, I want to just take a couple of minutes to get into more detail as to what has been driving such a robust demand growth in Ocean and some of the consequences of this phenomenon, which we do not think are sufficiently well understood. Despite talks of deglobalization, nearshoring, trade wars, container demand has shown a remarkable resilience over the past few years that has confounded many observers and models.
During this period, China's export growth into all regions of the world except for North America has not only been resilient, it had gathered pace. China's share of global export has increased significantly and never as fast as it has over the past two years. Specifically, its global export share has increased steadily from 33% only two years ago to about 37% this year. This growth is part of a longer trend as reflected from the chart to the left, but has accelerated recently. It affects all regions, with the Far East, excluding China, being the biggest market, and growing at 12% per annum, and Europe, the second biggest market, and growing at 10% per annum. North America, which in this case is including Mexico, which is the third biggest market, has been weaker but still has seen growth at 5% per annum despite the known trade tensions in 2025.
Given the widely available production capacity in China and the very competitive products that are being exported, we do not expect this trend of accelerated export growth from China to stop. The momentum is strong. The consequence for us are not only the resilience of demand growth, which will contribute to absorbing some of the new capacity coming online, but also the increased trade imbalance that it is causing, which over time will lead to higher production costs and lower asset intensity for the industry. On both fronts, Gemini offered us a much-needed flexibility so that we can capitalize on the growth opportunity while minimizing the cost impact. Moving back to Q3 and to Gemini specifically, this is the first quarter where we can see the full effect of the new network, and we are pleased that the savings are higher than our original guidance.
To give you a sense of the benefits, we separate the Ocean cost savings, which were the ones we had communicated, into two buckets, namely bunker savings and asset turn increase. Aside from these, we can also present an upside that we have seen in Terminals as a direct result of this new cooperation. Now. Taking each of these in turn and starting with bunker, we can see that the advantages of Gemini stemming from a more efficient use of our vessels, for instance, through lower speed, shorter sailing distances, and shorter dwell time, are allowing us to reduce the bunker consumption. This quarter, we saw 6% higher capacity, but about 3% lower total bunker consumption, and this translates in an approximately 8% bunker consumption reduction corrected for the changes in capacity. Then, on our asset turn side.
From the most efficient use of our vessels, Gemini allows us to transport more volumes at the same capacity. This quarter, we saw the capacity growth of about 6% against a volume growth of 7%. The delta of about 1 percentage point represents the improvement in asset turns. Both these buckets are driven by improvements we have been able to do under Gemini. First, we have been able to deploy our largest vessels in most effective routes and on shorter loops. Secondly, these shorter loops have had fewer port calls and more efficient ones. Thirdly, locations outside these shorter mainliner loops have been serviced by fit-for-purpose shuttles rather than underutilized mainliners. We can quantify the bunker consumption's improvement to about 8% at fixed bunker into cost benefits of about $135 million for the quarter, which annualized is about $450 million-$550 million. Based on the full year implementation and normal seasonality.
Likewise, we can quantify the asset turn improvement of about 1 percentage point, which against our total network cost translates into about $50 million of cost benefit in the quarter, which annualized is about another $150 million-$200 million benefits. The cost benefits on the Ocean side alone, therefore, sum up to around $600 million-$750 million on an annualized basis. Another advantage of Gemini has been to increase volumes in some of our gateway terminals, allowing us to significantly increase the throughput. These additional moves have improved port moves per hour and expanded operating terminal capacity. The additional uplift has generated about $40 million in benefits, which annualized is about $120 million-$200 million based on full year implementation and seasonality.
Overall, across Ocean and Terminals, therefore, we have generated about $225 million in cost benefits in the third quarter, or $720 million-$950 million in annual savings compared to our previously announced targets of about $500 million. As mentioned earlier, we now expect container volume growth to be around 4% for 2025, given the strong demand that we continue to see outside of North America. There is no change to our assumptions on the Red Sea disruptions, which we still expect will not reopen in the near term, absorbing net supply in the industry as long as it remains closed.
Against the backdrops of these factors, as well as a strong year-to-date performance, we refine our financial guidance to the full year 2025 to an underlying EBITDA of $9 billion-$9.5 billion from previously $8 billion-$9.5 billion, and an EBIT of $3 billion-$3.5 billion, previously $2 billion-$3.5 billion, and finally, a free cash flow of + $1 billion or higher, previously - $1 billion or higher. Our CapEx guidance for 2024 and 2025 combined is revised down to about $10 billion, down from $10 billion-$11 billion, while the guidance for 2025 and 2026 remains unchanged. I will now hand out to Patrick, who will walk you through the detailed financials at segment level for our performance.
Thank you, Vincent, and welcome to everyone on the call. Q3 2025 was a quarter with strong financial performance across the group, significantly up sequentially.
Overall, we generated an EBITDA of $2.7 billion and an EBIT of $1.3 billion. Implying a margin of 18.9% and 9% respectively. As expected, the delta to the previous year is driven largely by the shift in rates we have seen in Ocean since the peak levels in mid-2024, which was at the height of the Red Sea disruption, while the progress on the previous quarter is driven by higher volumes and operational improvements across all three businesses. Net profit after tax was $1.1 billion, generating a solid return on invested capital of 9.6%, still at a good level, but decreasing as strong 2024 quarters progressively fall out of the yearly calculation. Solid free cash flow supported a strong balance sheet with cash and deposits standing at $20.9 billion at quarter's end.
Our net cash position is down from $5.6 billion last year to $2.6 billion, driven mostly by the strong returns to shareholders, which totaled $4 billion in the first nine months. Let's take a closer look at cash flow on slide 12, where we see that cash flow from operations increased sequentially to $2.6 billion in the third quarter, driven by higher EBITDA of $2.7 billion, while the movements in net working capital were largely flat. Overall, we had a strong cash conversion of 97%, up from 89% last year and 81% last quarter. Further, across the chart, gross CapEx for the quarter was $1.2 billion in line with our multi-year CapEx guidance, driven by our Ocean Fleet renewal program. Meanwhile, capitalized.
Leases stood at $868 million, also in line with expectations, and down from the previous quarter, which was impacted by the Port Elizabeth concession extension, and free cash flow was therefore at $771 million. Capital return via share buyback was $578 million this quarter, and finally, most of the EUR 850 million you see in movements in borrowings relates to our nine-year EUR 500 million green bond issuance in September, extending our maturity profile early in light of extending bonds maturing in March next year. Taking it all together, cash generation was strong in the third quarter and supported an already strong balance sheet alongside the continuation of our share buyback. Turning to our Ocean segment on slide 13. Ocean delivered a strong operational performance in the third quarter, which marked the first full quarter of Gemini implementation.
From a financial standpoint, Ocean generated an EBIT of $567 million, implying a margin of 6.2%. This is down on last year, driven by the expected rate decline, but significantly up sequentially, driven by the strong volume growth of 7% in Gemini. Specifically on Gemini, as Vincent mentioned earlier, the new network generated cost benefits in the form of bunker savings and higher asset turns, without which we would have expected our third quarter Ocean costs, and therefore EBIT, to be impacted negatively by about $185 million. Meanwhile, freight rates were significantly down year -on- year, driven by the ongoing market pressure on rates since 2024, but broadly in line sequentially. CapEx was in line with guidance and comprised mainly installments on vessel orders announced last year, as well as a broader equipment renewal and vessel deliveries that are part of our Ocean Fleet renewal program.
As usual, the chart on slide 14 illustrates the main elements of the year-on-year EBITDA development in our Ocean business. On the left, you can see the large impact on profitability from the 31% lower freight rates, cushioned by the tailwind of the 7% increase in volumes year-on- year. Ocean also saw a positive impact of $211 million from lower bunker prices compared to last year, while container handling and network costs increased, driven by higher empty repositioning and terminal costs. Also note that EBITDA was further supported by higher detention and demurrage revenue and a positive delta in revenue recognition, the latter of which accounts for the vast majority of the net $551 million in the final bucket. All in all, these offsetting factors allowed EBITDA in the third quarter to settle at $1.8 billion, down from the previous year, but up on the previous quarter.
Let's now have a look on the Ocean KPIs on slide 15. Ocean's operational performance in the third quarter is highlighted in these metrics, with strong volume performance and Gemini helping to offset headwinds in cost and rates. Loaded volumes increased by 7% year-on- year, reaching 3.4 million FFEs as demand was strong on key trade lanes. Sequentially, volumes grew by 5.2%. As mentioned earlier, our average loaded freight rates declined by 31% year-on- year, reflecting market fundamentals that we have seen since 2024 from growing assessed capacity. Nevertheless, as reflected in the flat sequential development, the lower levels in the third quarter at quarter end were actually offset by the high levels at the start of the quarter, therefore providing a fairly benign rate environment in the quarter.
On the cost side, unit costs at fixed bunker decreased both year -on- year and sequentially by 0.8% and 2.2% respectively, as strong volume performance, high utilization, as well as cost benefits from Gemini offset the general cost pressure. Bunker costs were down 14% year -on- year due to both lower fuel prices by 13% and increased efficiency from Gemini, leading to lower bunker consumption of 3.2%. This is despite us carrying more volumes and managing a larger fleet. Specifically on the fleet, the average operating fleet grew 5.5% year -on-year, reaching 4.6 million TEU, all while capacity utilization remained high at 94%. Let's now turn to our Logistics & Services business on slide 16. In the third quarter, Logistics & Services delivered revenue of $4 billion, up 2.3% year -on- year and 8.6% sequentially, the latter reflecting seasonal strength.
The year-on-year growth was driven by growth across most products. On the bottom line, EBIT showed a significant increase to $218 million, which also implied a continued EBIT margin improvement of 0.4 percentage points year-on- year and 0.7 percentage points sequentially to 5.5%. The margin improvement is primarily driven by the continued operational progress that the team has made in Fulfilled by Maersk, all while continuing to exercise stringent cost control across all service models. CapEx is down last year but remains at a stable level sequentially to support growth, with particular focus on depot and warehousing this quarter. Now, let's have a look at the breakdown by service model within Logistics & Services on slide 17. Starting with our supply chain management offering, revenue here decreased by 4.8% year-on- year to $594 million, with the EBITDA margin decreasing to 22.6%, down from 24.2% last year.
This decline was driven by weakness in lead logistics, our 4PL business, volumes primarily from China to the U.S., on the back of the stop-and-go volatility we have seen in the external environment. In fulfillment services, operational progress in middle mile North America and warehousing led to significant improvements in profitability, with an EBIT margin of -0.9%, up from -4.5%. Revenue increased by 2.9%, reaching $1.5 billion. Finally, revenue increased in transported services to $1.9 billion, equal to a 4.3% increase year -on- year. This was supported by higher volumes in landside transportation in the peak season. However, the EBITDA margin was impacted by weakness in air, landing lower on the previous quarter at 7.3%. We round off with our Terminals business on slide 18. Terminals delivered another excellent quarter, continuing the positive trend.
Revenue grew by 22% year-on- year to $1.4 billion, driven by 8.7% higher volumes supported by Gemini and improved rates. Specifically on the Gemini impact, volumes from Maersk Ocean increased 26% year-on- year. The higher volumes brought a further uptick in utilization, which stands at 89%. As mentioned earlier, while this is supportive of high margins, it also highlights the necessity to invest in capacity extension in the coming years to cater for the long-term growth of our port operations. Revenue per move increased by 7.8%, reflecting improved rates and mix. Meanwhile, cost per move increased by 6.7%, largely due to labor inflation and higher SG&A costs, but mitigated by higher utilization. Overall, EBIT increased by 69% year -on- year to $571 million, with a margin of 39.4%, up 11 percentage points from last year and 4.1% higher sequentially.
This underlying good margin was supported by a net $139 million. Positive impact from one-offs, including the reversal of impairments due to the successful extension of a concession. ROIC rose to a record 17.2%, underlining the intrinsic strong return profile of this business. Although levels will taper down progressively with increased renewals and investments. CapEx for the quarter came in at $154 million, more or less in line with previous year, and reflects the continued investment in our gateway's portfolio. Turning to the breakdown of Terminals EBITDA on slide 19. Terminals delivered an increased EBITDA from $424 million last year to $501 million. The increase in cost per move of $56 million was more than offset by higher revenue per move and volume impact. Currency, exits, and other movements brought a further positive impact of $29 million, bringing the EBITDA to a record level for the quarter.
With that, we finish the review of our business segments and are ready for the Q&A. Operator, please go ahead.
We will now begin the question -and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from said question queue, you may press star and then two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star one at this time. Our first question comes from Patrick Creuset from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vincent, Patrick. Just two questions. First, on the outlook, if we look at your Q4 EBITDA, you're implicitly guiding based on the full year range somewhere between $1.3 billion- $1.8 billion. Can you provide a little bit of color on what sort of volume and rate assumptions are embedded or would be embedded at the top and the bottom? Also, based on what you see so far going to Q4, do you see a skew more likely at the top or low end? Just on the buyback, it's got a cash position of around $15 billion or so. In the past, you've sometimes given the market a sense on how comfortable you felt on buybacks on the year ahead. Can you again give us a bit of sense today? Assuming, for instance, a stable trading environment at these levels, would you.
See a reason to discontinue the buyback next year or keep it? Thanks very much.
No, thanks very much, Patrick. So indeed, when you look at the guidance for Q4, it implies a continuity of the pace that we have currently. We have seen rates stabilize by September and early October. That is, I would say, the pace that we have continued to forecast for the Q4. The volume developments actually seem still to be pretty strong as we can see it. I would rather mentally see, let's say, the revision of the guidance towards indicating the higher end of the guidance, which is what we are doing by narrowing the range, and that's what we intend to signify here, which at group level is more or less a break-even. It will depend on the last few weeks for the Q4. When you look at the cash position and balance sheet, it is strong.
As we have indicated as well when we restarted the share buyback back in February this year, the intent is to certainly see this as another one-year event. In your assumption of a stability of externalities, I think there is nothing that speaks against the continuation of the share buyback indeed.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Muneeba Kayani, Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, just on the logistics EBIT improving at a margin of 5.5%, can you remind us what seasonality in this business. And if there was any benefit on that, and kind of how much of this is kind of the improvement which can continue? Then secondly, we've seen in container shipping the order book to fleet ratio for the industry is around 32% now, which I believe is the highest since the global financial crisis. What do you think is driving that, and how do you see it playing out? Thank you.
Yeah, hi, Muneeba. If I start with your first question on Logistics, I think most of the improvement that we're seeing is due to the cost containment and productivity improvement that we are putting in place. In general, the business will have a seasonality a bit tilted towards the second half year versus the first half year. Mostly, I would say, towards the very end of the year, depending on your product exposure. I think when we look at it, and you can see that in the volumes and the top line, we see some seasonal improvements that are helping. We also see some of the wins that we're taking in that are helping. I think most of it is actually coming from the work that we're doing on margin.
From the order book, I think you're correct that at 32%, the order book is quite high. I want you to, I just need you to remember two things. I think the first one is that the time to order, so the number of years over which this is going to phase in, is more than it was before the financial crisis. If you were to go at, there's a longer installment, if you will, that is being ordered. That's one thing. The second thing is the story that we had about China. The market is growing at about 4%. On the head haul, it's growing at about 7%. What we're seeing is, as long as it grows at 7% on the head haul, you need 7% more capacity to be able to carry this.
I think there is this dichotomy that there is between head haul growth and average growth is absorbing a lot more capacity. The longer order books means that it's not phasing as brutally as one would expect. The last point that there is, is not a single ship has been scrapped for the last six years, but the ships all got six years older in that period. There is pent-up demand for that. I think over time, we will see that some of the levers that so far have come at us, whether it was higher demand from China or sailing around the Cape of Good Hope or COVID, this will fade away and we'll be back to having to use the tools that we normally use in the industry, which is scrapping, idling, slow steaming, and so on.
There are still significant levers that we can lift to actually balance the outlook.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Ulrik Bak, Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Hello, thank you for taking my question. On the volume side, ocean volumes, you obviously have very strong growth, 7% in the quarter. I'm just curious to hear if there is a split between the feeder legs and the main haul legs, and if there is any issue with double counting anything, because it just looks so extraordinary, your volume growth. If I can sneak in a second one, this overperformance versus the market, how long do you expect this to be sustained?
All right, I can guarantee you that there is no double counting of volume. We count the containers and the bills of lading only once. It is much better. You would see it in the revenue development very differently if we were double counting. I think that we can be quite categorical around that. I think when I look at what we are able to do right now as a result of Gemini from a cost perspective, I think it is a pretty significant lever that we have unlocked here. This has, I think, legs to continue into the coming quarters. I cannot give you how many quarters this advantage will last. I think it is going to last quite a while, but it depends also on what we do next and what competition does next. I am not in control of all of that.
I think that what we have shown on the slide with Gemini is there are a few levers where we have broken some efficiency frontier that we had under the previous deployment. We have moved them now to being higher. This is what allows us to actually lift the cost impact of Gemini quite significantly.
The next question comes from Omar Nokta, Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Just wanted to follow up on the share buyback discussion. As you mentioned last quarter, you continued to view that as a focal point of the capital allocation strategy. It sounds like that's going to continue for 2026 as well. Just in terms of how you're thinking about the size, $2 billion this year, how can we think about how that looks for 2026 as you set the budget? Does it become a portion or a function of how much free cash flow was generated this year? Or what's it based on? Is it based off of earnings next year? Any color you can give will be helpful.
Yeah, thanks very much for your question, Omar. No, as we said, clearly, share buyback is a fundamental piece of our capital allocation and will continue to be as well for next year. I think when you look at the dimensioning, you know that we actually maxed out this year, right? Just from the free float and the rules on the daily volumes. I would expect this to be, let's say, a maximum amount. The exact dimensioning will be done, obviously, in February and when we come out with our guidance for fully. I think it would be premature now to guide, but I think certainly the willingness to continue a sizable share buyback is certainly there.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Cedar Ekblom, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Hi, gentlemen. I have a question on the Gemini cost savings. I'm looking at that slide that you put together, and it looks like the bulk of the benefits come on the bunker side of things, which I think makes sense. What I am surprised about is why the asset turn benefit is not higher. Maybe you could just talk through what I'm missing there. Maybe I've just thought that the asset turn would be better. You could optimize the network more, long voyage, big vessels, feeder vessels, et cetera. Just trying to understand that split, that the bunker number and the asset turn number are not sort of closer to each other. Thank you.
Yeah, hi, thank you, Cedar. I think. Let me try to explain that. I think the asset turn, it depends also on what is your base. We had an extremely high utilization last year, so we've been able to lift this with half a percent. We're continuing to look at whether we can actually increase that number in the coming quarter. The bunker, we can very much control, because as soon as you're into the deployment, since we measure it against the capacity, we get the full saving calculated there. We've tried to disaggregate that because we could have just done this in terms of total unit cost per container, and that would have mixed the bunker and the efficiency on the fleet or on the utilization. I think the bunker, we see 100% of the saving right away.
As long as we deliver on the reliability, this will be pretty steady. I think on the asset turns, this is where I think we have some opportunity to continue to fine-tune and improve the network. This one, I would look at as still having a bit of leg that we need to exploit in the coming quarters.
Okay, and then, yeah, just to follow up there. Obviously, the container handling unit cost at a fixed bunker has not really come down. Your view is obviously it has come down sequentially, which is helpful. Could you give any sort of guide around how to think about that sort of container handling cost on a unit basis or maybe network cost on a unit basis? Are we talking about a 5% decline from here unit-wise? I do not know if you could help us quantify how to think about that run rate into 2026. Thanks.
Yeah, so. The issue with the container handling is the fact that, as I mentioned, with an average market growth at 4% and a head haul growth at 7%, trades become more imbalanced. Under container handling, the amount of empty containers we're moving around increases because there is just more containers going one way and fewer containers going the other way. That means more empty repositioning. That's what I mentioned in the slide for China. I think as we see this imbalance continue to grow, it's important that we understand that we're going to need more and more capacity to cater for growth because it's more and more asymmetrical between the head haul and the back haul. It will also increase our cost per FFE above that because of the increased imbalance and more empty containers being moved around.
Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. Appreciate it.
Our next question comes from Kristian Godiksen, SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Also, a couple of questions on the Gemini part. Just a household question to start out with. The improvement in Terminals, is that for the hubs and hem included in the Ocean part of the business, or is that for the Terminals business? If you could maybe comment a bit on the unit cost advantage you see compared to the peers that are not using the hub and spoke model. Maybe just finally sneak in a question on whether you've had any preliminary discussions with the clients on a potential price premium for your higher schedule reliability. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Christian. I think what is important with Gemini from the gateway perspective is the fact that before, when we were in 2M, we were paired with probably the other line that has the most comprehensive terminal portfolio. It means that in a lot of locations, we had to split volumes between the different parties. Here we are with a partner that has much less of a terminal portfolio, and it means that net, we're getting more locations where 100% of the throughput is not split between two different facilities, but it's all going through our facilities. For the gateways, this is very, very positive because they get the full 100% of the support from Gemini. That is something that is an uplift for this, and it will last for as long as Gemini lasts. It is quite positive.
On the unit cost, I think we're going to need one or two quarters more of data from also the competition to know, because we can see how much we have saved sequentially and how much we have saved year -on- year. Obviously, the world doesn't stand completely still. They will also do certain things. What we can see with the numbers that have been released so far is that we're making more progress on unit cost than what they're making. We attribute this to Gemini, which is the big thing that we did to lower our unit costs. We are quite positive on the fact that we're opening up a gap now with Gemini that is going to be, that is going quite handy, especially in the current rate environment. We will continue to work at making it as big as possible.
Finally, on customer discussion, I want to say that the customer's reaction is really very, very positive. Obviously, for the premium, this is a conversation that we have started, but it's a bit too early to talk because we need to be certain also that we have a long enough track record that it unlocks value for them, where we can then capture some of that value for us. For instance, concretely, today, every customer has a buffer stock. That reliability needs to unlock a reduction of that buffer stock. They need to trust that this has weathered sufficient ups and downs and be steady, that they can take out some of that buffer stock. If they do, they pocket that saving, and then we can capture some of it in form of a premium. I think that process is starting. It's a long-haul process.
To take place, but certainly something where we see some potential, at least, to capture some value. We need to, it's just a few months. It's the first quarter we're going with it today, where we have the full Gemini. Some of them have been in transition with, so not everything is yet fully in a place where value has been unlocked yet. We are very positive with the discussion so far.
Perfect. Thanks a lot. Very clear answers. Thank you.
The next question comes from Jacob Lacks, Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks for your time. You've discussed in the past maybe a bit of a shift in how quickly contracts get repriced when the market's tightening up. Have you seen customers actively work to reprice contracts again with rates moving lower now? To that end, do you think the current rate environment will largely be reflected in Q4, or could there be some incremental pressure in 2026 when new contracts are signed?
Thank you, Jacob. We've not seen any big movements on contract being open now, which, since the contracts have been trending down during Q3, and it was not very timely for people to do it until when they know they have the negotiation coming soon and as long as things are moving their way. I think that from that perspective, that's one of the things that also holds the contract good. Those have not moved. You will have noticed that over the past few weeks, the rates have actually come up again a little bit. It's too early to call anything on the contracting season. I think we'll have certainly a discussion around this in February when we come with the full year guidance for 2026, and we have some of the early negotiations under wrap.
I think for now, what we have seen in terms of behavior from customers is that whatever the price did during Q3 did not lead to customers actually reopening contracts or wanting to have commercial discussions on price. Contract adherence has been quite strong as well. It's not like the volumes just disappeared. I mean, they were living up to their commitment.
Yep, makes sense. Great. Thank you for your time.
Next question comes from James Hollins, BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, yeah. Obviously, discussed buybacks are pretty important to the market. I was just wondering, I mean, clearly, another way you might not do buybacks is aggressively pursuing M&A. I was wondering how you're looking at M&A if you are indeed looking quite extensively and globally at potential deals. Secondly, a bit of a sort of generic question, but I've got a little bit of consensus for 2026 ownership. Bloomberg Consensus has a loss of $2.8 billion. I mean, that would be an Armageddon scenario. Like 2009, your company could pose at $1.7 billion, apart from showing how nuts forecasting is. Maybe just get a sort of your view on how you would see.
I guess, particularly that Bloomberg Consensus against the reality of what you might see in this industry based on someone who's been in it a long time, with your work on cost, your work on the alliance, and basically whether that's way too pessimistic. Thank you.
Hey, James. I think let me start with 2026. I give you the standard answer that I look really forward to talking about it in February. Before that, I think we'll have to pause on giving any type of views. With respect to the M&A, I think what we need to remember is that all three segments that we operate in are actually, over time, segments that are quite competitive and very low margin. When I hear something like aggressive pursuit of M&A, I hear premiums that will be difficult to justify through synergies afterwards and a lot of risk to destroy shareholder value. Whereas we've said it and we continue to say that M&A will be a part of the continued repositioning of Maersk, and whenever we see opportunities, we have both the wherewithal and the interest to pursue them. Maybe an aggressive.
Thing right now, given some of the outlook, is not necessarily something we will pursue.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Our next question comes from Paresh Jain, HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I mean, just first, with respect to Red Sea, I know nobody has a crystal ball, but given the recent developments, is it? First half of next year looks more likely than ever before. My second question is, we heard a lot about front-loading by the US retailers in particular. Now that we are well into the peak season, are there any signs of front-loading which has been reflected into the fourth quarter's volume run rate? Thank you.
Yeah, so for the Red Sea, let me start by saying that obviously the ceasefire in Gaza is a significant, first, it's a great thing for people in Gaza and for the world in general, but it is also a significant step towards being able to reopen the Suez Canal since the situation in Bab el-Mandeb and in Gaza have been linked since the beginning. I think the way we think about this is that we need now to make sure that this moves into a process where it becomes clear that the ceasefire is entrenched and doesn't risk going backward at some point, and we fall back into a new phase of a conflict. That is a situation we're monitoring quite closely. We're also figuring out what is the posture of the Houthis specifically to see if we can start to have a safe passage.
I would. Whether it's more likely now to be early at some point or whatever, I think if the ceasefire holds, then I think we've crossed a gate and made a big step towards returning through the Red Sea. I think we need to see that get entrenched, and we need to see the process move ahead. Once that happens, then we will have a better view of what that means for a return to the Red Sea. In respect of front-loading, I think there was a lot of discussion on front-loading, especially end of 2024, beginning of 2025, before the tariffs in April. We certainly saw, following the implementation of tariff, that things softened in North America. We certainly still have seen this still into the third quarter and even, I would say, during the month of October. I will say that.
What we're seeing now is there is somewhat of a push also into the U.S. for some of the seasonal goods to get there. I think from a demand perspective, very resilient demand across all geographies and the U.S. that is picking up a bit of pace following this month between April and October that have been a bit more soft.
Thank you so much, and have a good evening. Good day.
Our next question comes from Alexia Dogani, JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, Bill. Thanks for taking my questions. Just firstly, could you explain a little bit the unit revenue development? Because we're struggling to reconcile with the trade lane numbers you report and the group level. If you can just explain how did normally develop as for the six-week lag, the spot versus the contract, how did it perform versus expectations, whether it's underperformed or performed? Because, yeah, trying to reconcile a little bit the outcome. And secondly, on the unit cost, again, on notion, I mean, clearly you talk positively about the Gemini contributions, but overall, your unit cost at constant bunker is only down 1%. Despite you growing 7% capacity and 5.5% volume, sorry, the other way, 5.5% capacity, 7% volume. So when we look at next year, what further cost savings can you deliver if there is less volume growth?
Because I imagine the capacity benefits analyzed. Finally, obviously, the IMO has now delayed its kind of net zero initiative. How should we think about the implications for industry capacity discipline? I guess more importantly for yourself that have invested in green CapEx, which comes at a higher cost, and so it kind of takes you in a relative disadvantage. Thank you.
Yeah, there's quite a few questions, so let me try to cover that to the best possible. I think first of all, when you look at the cost, there is one element that we're missing, and it is that the net position that we have on our different VSAs, whether it's a plus or a minus, is reported under other revenue. The fact is that our position in 2M was balanced, and our position in Gemini is that of a net seller of capacity. That means that out of the 11% that you see in growth in the network cost, half of that is due to that net position. Once you take that out, then the growth of our network cost is actually 5.5% for a 7% volume increase. I think that's just important to position this. We see the unit cost being decreased.
The biggest efficiency is because we have chosen to slow steam and be reliable, is going to be seen on bunker. That was always. It does not matter so much which line item it shows, but we have made choices. We could have gone a bit faster and saved a few ships and also generated some cost savings that you would have seen more on the network cost. We have chosen to really focus on bunker. I think for the unit cost, there is this. When we look forward, I think we have three levers for cost savings, for further cost savings. One is the expansion of Gemini. Two is actually some of our other costs here under organizational cost that we are looking into. Then finally, I think as the rates soften, we will see also a softening in the time charter market, and that will generate further savings in.
The unit cost that we have by basically being able to lease ships at a cheaper price. Those are, I think, the three key things. I will say that we anticipate. You mentioned less volume growth. We do not expect necessarily less volume growth, but we will talk about this in February. I think that is not an assumption we should have. That is both for the unit cost and the growth. The IMO, I would say from a CapEx perspective. What happened at the IMO is a non-event. Seen from that today, every single ship that is on order, more or less, has a dual fuel engine. It is either dual fuel LNG bunker or it is dual fuel methanol bunker. I think everybody understands that it makes sense when you take a bet on the next 30 years by ordering a ship, that you cannot just base yourself on.
What the IMO is doing now, but you need to understand what optionality you have for the next 30 years. I don't expect that people will start to order only bunker ships because they will think that for the next 30 years, this green transition is not going to be an issue at all. I think from that perspective, I don't think operationally IMO is a problem. I don't think CapEx-wise IMO is a problem. It's a problem to execute the energy transition because definitely it's a loss of momentum. From an operational perspective, we are not at disadvantage, and I don't think it's going to change order behaviors or supply and demand. Let me come back on your rate, on your first part of your questions here. What you have to consider is that we have increased the share of short-term.
Rates in our mix, as you can see as well in our disclosure, to 53%. Compared to 47% long-term in the quarter, which was positive during Q2, Q3. As short-term rates decreased during Q3, you see that our full-year estimate for 2025 sees an increase of the long-term. We are pushing the contract fulfillment and the long-term rates, which are more resilient to the erosion of the rates in the short-term. You have a progressive change of mix constantly to optimize the revenue there. Another factor when you try to reconcile is also the very different geographical evolution of the rates. The east-west rates are the ones which we always follow very publicly, and those ones came down. However, you do have much more resilient rates developing in the north-south and in the interregional rates as well.
That's a bit of a mix that you see always in our total figure. Hope that helps. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Marco Limite, Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. My first question is on demand because you're talking about a fairly strong demand while some of your competitors in other subsectors are talking about soft demand. You have also mentioned that you expect U.S. demand being sort of strong over the next six months. You have mentioned that China outbound has grown 7% and a similar rate going forward. What kind of visibility have you got on basically these assumptions? Especially the fact that China has been very strong this year, is not that a risk for growth next year on very high comps? That is the first question. The second is on capital allocation. We have been discussing about potential for M&A and share buyback and so on.
When we think about terminal expansion, I mean, this week you announced a $2 billion investment in the terminals. First question, is that on your balance sheet or off-balance sheet, as your comment already stated? More in general, is it a problem for you to have, let's say, terminal business in the overall Maersk umbrella, where of course you cannot take a lot of leverage, but terminal business needs big CapEx investments and also a larger balance sheet buffer? Thank you.
Yeah, let me start with the demand. First of all, the strength of the demand, if I look at year to date, both last year and year to date, I mean, this is. I hope this is undisputed by anybody, at least when it comes to container traffic, because you can verify it in the CTS statistics, GOC statistics, and any other widely available port statistics that you can find. Is the fact that China makes up a large part of this and that this shows no signs of abating. Personally, I do not see any reasonable argument or data source that would go against the fact that demand has been above 5% last year and will be around 4% this year, which is actually quite significant. The demand from China and the growth from China, at least so far, shows no sign of abating. Unless.
At some point somebody can point to a reason for why this would abate. I think it's a reasonable assumption to say that if there is no reason for it to slow down or stop, then why would it? You can discuss whether, given, as you mentioned, given the comps, whether it's going to continue to be 11% or that the base becomes so big that it becomes 10% or 9%. The fact is that it's still quite significant. At least so far, as we show in the graph, the last two years, it's been accelerating, not decelerating. I think from a demand perspective, we feel quite confident that demand growth is very strong. There's a lot of cargo out there to move, and that has a lot to do with China. I think that there is ample data to back that up.
You wanted to? Yeah, on your question on the capital allocation and terminals, I think so. First of all, on the capital allocation, I think our first priority is organic growth. We have always said that. We would dedicate the sufficient funds to grow in Logistics, grow in Terminals, and renew our fleet for Ocean. That is part of our guidance of the $10 billion-$11 billion CapEx over two years. That is factored in. I think what you have to see is actually Terminals is a brilliant business that complements Ocean. We capture a lot of the value, as we actually just showed on Gemini, of the value of the Ocean leg into the port, right? The margins there are actually higher than in Ocean. It is good to have. It comes with.
I would say a high CapEx profile when you have new terminals, but a lot of the CapEx is actually expansion of existing, right? Of existing capacity where you can grow. You have a few new ones which are planned, which just announced the, we just opened one recently, and there are others in the pipeline, which again are absolutely included in our guidance and do make absolute good sense. Overall, I would say it is still an asset lighter business than Ocean is. It is absolutely fine with our balance sheet. We have the balance sheet structure and financing to fund that development as well.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Vincent Clerc for any closing remarks.
Thank you again for joining us today. To summarize the discussions, we have demonstrated strong execution in this quarter in which uncertainties did persist in the external environment, but where we carried to deliver strong results across the whole business portfolio. We have made good progress across the portfolio and continue to see supportive demand. This has allowed us to narrow the full-year guidance. We look forward to seeing many of you on our upcoming roadshows and investor conference. Thank you for your attention again, and see you soon. Bye-bye.