Australia's stevedores are charging record high prices and making historic profits despite having significant spare capacity in ports and with their costs and productivity remaining relatively stable in recent years, the ACCC's Container Stevedoring Monitoring Report 2024-25 shows.
In 2024-25, stevedoring profits rose for the fifth year in a row, reaching historical highs across most metrics measured by the ACCC.
Stevedores are now charging a higher total price per container, in real terms, than at any time since the ACCC began monitoring the container stevedoring industry 27 years ago.
The report concludes that a Government policy or regulatory response is likely required to address apparent market failures and improve Australia's container freight supply chain to the benefit of households and businesses.
The ACCC uses total real revenue per container lift as a proxy for the total stevedoring price paid per container. The stevedoring industry's total real revenue per lift has increased by $21.93 (or 5.5 per cent) in 2024-25 and $68.88 (or 19.4 per cent) since 2019-20, to a historical high of $423.11 per container in 2024-25.
Over the past five years, using real earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) as an example, the stevedoring industry's real:
- operating profit has increased by $457.8 million (or 130.5%), to a historical high of $808.6 million in 2024-25
- operating profit margin has increased by 14.5 percentage points, to a historical high of 34.8% in 2024-25
- return on average tangible assets has increased by 29.5 percentage points, to a historical high of 45% in 2024-25.
The report also compares the profitability of the stevedoring industry with other companies in the transportation and industrials sectors. It shows the stevedoring industry's profitability in 2024 was higher than the transportation sector across all metrics the ACCC used, and higher than the industrials sector across most metrics.
"These are very high short run returns for an industry with significant spare capacity at ports, stable costs and stable productivity," ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said.
"Typically, we would expect to see excess terminal capacity placing downward pressure on the stevedores' prices and short run profits. The fact that stevedores are performing better than they were prior to entry of Hutchison, a time when the industry was operating as a capacity constrained duopoly, raises serious concern about how this market is operating."
Landside charges the main driver of rising prices and profits
In recent years, stevedores have significantly increased the fees that transport companies have to pay to collect or drop off containers, known as landside charges.
"Over the years, landside charges have gone from a relatively small part of revenue to a major driver of profit for the industry," Ms Brakey said.
In 2024-25, the stevedoring industry collected almost half (49.5 per cent or $1.15 billion) of its revenue from landside charges. This is almost equal to the entire investment that the stevedores have made collectively over the past 8 years ($1.25 billion).
More than $642 million of the $1.15 billion in landside charges revenue came from terminal access charges alone, which stevedores previously described as infrastructure levies.
"The stevedoring industry began to significantly increase terminal access charges in 2017 and since then they've collected over $3 billion in terminal access charges," Ms Brakey said.
"We are concerned that stevedores can increase these charges, and thereby their profitability, independent of the underlying market conditions".
"These unavoidable costs land first on trucking companies, who then pass them on to importers and exporters, who have no real way to avoid or negotiate them. With similar charges across terminals and lack of ability or incentives for most importers and exporters to switch stevedores, they cannot influence these costs through competition," Brakey said.
"Targeted reform is likely needed to ensure there are effective competitive constraints on stevedores to support the supply chain. Without it, Australian businesses and households will ultimately pay the price through higher costs."
Stevedoring industry total revenue per lift
Background
The ACCC has monitored the container stevedoring industry since 1998-99, under a direction from the Australian Government.
Container stevedoring involves lifting containers on and off ships. The ACCC currently monitors the prices, costs and profits of container stevedores at five Australian container ports: Adelaide, Brisbane, Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney.
Stevedores levy fixed charges, including terminal access charges and vehicle booking fees on transport operators for every laden container transport operators collect from, or drop off at, stevedores' terminals. Stevedores also levy a range of incentive-based and ancillary charges on transport operators.
These fixed and incentive-based charges are collectively known as 'landside charges'.
