News
Imports at the U.S.'s largest retail container ports saw their busiest April on record and May could turn out to have set a new all-time record as vaccines allowed consumers to return to normal shopping patterns, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
U.S. ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 2.15 million TEUs in April, the latest month for which final numbers are available. That was by far the busiest April on record and an increase of 33.4 percent from a year earlier, when most stores were closed by the coronavirus pandemic. April's results followed 2.27 million TEUs in March, which set the record for the most containers imported during a single month since NRF began tracking imports in 2002.
Ports haven't reported May numbers yet, but Global Port Tracker projected the month at 2.32 million TEUs, which would be up 51.1 percent from the same time last year and would beat March's total to set another new record for the largest number of containers in a single month.
June is forecast at 2.13 million TEUs, up 32.8 percent year-over-year; July at 2.19 million TEUs, up 14.2 percent; August at 2.26 million TEUs, up 7.5 percent; September at 2.14 million TEUs, up 1.7 percent, and October at 2.07 million TEUs, down 6.5 percent for the first year-over-year decline since July 2020.
The first half of 2021 is forecast at 12.8 million TEUs, up 35.3 percent over the same period in 2020. As with each month this spring, the year-over-year comparison is skewed because of the sharp decline in imports during the first half of last year. But the six-month total would put 2021 on track to easily beat 2020’s full-year total of 22 million TEUs, which was up 1.9 percent over 2019 despite the pandemic.
