NEWS Integrated Reefer 3rd quarter 2018 Signs of strong demand Proof of user confidence By Søren Leth Johannsen, Chief Commercial Officer With a projected total of 150,000 units produced, reefer demand in 2018 has the potential to come close to matching historic record years. Output in the first half of 2018 has already surpassed 70,000 reefers but, at the time of writing, we have registered new orders for significant numbers of reefers for delivery in the second half of the year. Of those, close to 20,000 Star Cool Integrated reefers have so far been sold in second half of the year alone, all to non-affiliated companies. Several of these orders have included the controlled atmosphere (CA) system. This means that the Star Cool CA system has now surpassed an installed base of 50,000 systems in global service. One of the ingredients for cautious optimism is that we foresee continued firm and stable demand for reefer containers over the coming years, driven by stable growth in refrigerated transports and conversion from bulk to containers. Fact is the global reefer bulk fleet has now reached an average age of 28 years. One of the main reasons why this segment has been kept in operation is the low bunker price of the past few years. With the fuel costs steadily rising and the IMO sulphur regulations due to be in place by 2020, a higher pace of conversion is expected. This outlook is further supported by the fact that there are virtually no orders for reefer bulk vessels at the shipyards. Shipping is known as one of the most traditional and conservative industries, which many of us actually find sort of ‘appealing’. However, the digital winds are certainly blowing and the importance of optimally trimming the sails and setting the right course for the future is more important than ever. We launched the 2nd generation of our ‘Star Cool Service’ app back in June and have been amazed by the number of users and the daily number of new subscribers signing up across the world. The largest user group for our app is reefer technicians and we can see that services related to online searches and technical guides are extremely popular and are being used as daily tools. These intuitive services will continue developing and it certainly proves that our contribution to the maritime industry is truly adaptable. Boosting capacity Our leadership in energy efficiency and the reliable high performance offered by our products has led to excellent levels of customer satisfaction and steadily increasing orders. To meet the growing demand for Star Cool machines, we have rapidly expanded capacity by hiring 200 skilled workers to boost the Star Cool production line at MCI Qingdao. At the time of writing, production is already well up to speed. To manage the growing fleets of Star Cool reefers in global trade and to support the continuous expansion of new commodities and export locations converting to Star Cool CA and CA+ system, we are again hiring expert staff to give us additional capabilities in the fields of service and customer support. We introduce our new colleagues in this Q3 edition of Integrated Reefer News, which I hope you enjoy reading.
Download PDF file
Archive
How to navigate in this digital publication
Click the arrows to navigate through pages
For zoom, use the mouse and click at the page
Click the download icon to download PDF version
Click the print icon to print