September U.S.-bound waterborne shipments take a step back, reports Panjiva

The uneven tempo of United States-bound waterborne shipments remained intact in September based on data issued by Panjiva, an online search engine with detailed information on global suppliers and manufacturers.

Coming off of August, which saw both sequential and annual gains ahead of July, September shipments faltered, with total shipments at 913,757 down 8 percent compared to August and down 4 percent annually. Panjiva said this sequential decline was in line with August to September variations in recent years, including -3 percent in 2014, -6 percent in 2013, and -4 percent in 2012.

In a company blog posting, Panjiva said that based on past years, it expects to see monthly shipment numbers drop throughout the remainder of 2015 en route to a seasonal low in early 2016.

And while a monthly decline is usually expected for the month of September on the heels of the typical sourcing season, Panjiva expected September shipment numbers to be higher because of the holiday season’s later start this year (which was due in part to a slow and soft July).

On a year-to-date basis through September shipments are up 1.2 percent at 8,205,728.

“For September, we have historically seen a decline as it is coming off of the holiday peak, with the negative month-over-month growth in line with what we expected,” said Annelise Mccarthy, Panjiva research director.

In explaining the -8 percent August to September drop, McCarthy cited better than normal growth in August, due primarily to a shift in the holiday season imports, as well as a general reflection of the current attitude of the economy brought on by cautious consumer spending and relatively mild retail sales.

McCarthy also explained that looking at growth in 2015, it is much less than where it has been in previous years.

“Year-to-date growth through September is 1.2 percent, and for the same period last year it was 4.7 percent,” she said. “We can expect [overall] growth to be lower than in 2014, but I am curious to see what happens over the next three months of data to end the year in getting to a final number.”

The -8 percent decline in import volumes from August to September closely matches up with the cumulative 7.4 percent decline for the same period from the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach.

Looking ahead, import volume data from Panjiva from September to October has been flattish, with 2 percent and 3 percent gains in 2013 and 2014 and down 1 percent in 2013.