MATSON, INC. ANNOUNCES FIRST QUARTER 2022 RESULTS

HONOLULU, May 3, 2022

"Matson is off to a solid start in 2022 with higher year-over-year operating income in both Ocean Transportation and Logistics," said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Matt Cox.  "Within Ocean Transportation, our China service continued to see significant demand for its expedited ocean services as volume for e-commerce, garments and other goods remained elevated.  The increase in consolidated operating income year-over-year was driven primarily by continued strength in the China service.  Currently in the Transpacific tradelane, we are seeing supply chain challenges in China, primarily due to actions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, as well as continued supply chain constraints and congestion on the U.S. West Coast, elevated consumption trends, and inventory restocking.  Despite the near-term uncertainty presented by the supply chain challenges in China, we expect a combination of the current supply and demand factors to remain largely in place through at least the October peak season and continue to expect elevated demand for our China service for most of this year."  

Mr. Cox added, "In our domestic ocean tradelanes, we continued to see steady demand with higher year-over-year volumes in Alaska and Guam, and demand in Hawaii comparable to the level achieved in the year ago period.  In Logistics, operating income increased year-over-year with strength across all of the business lines as we continued to see elevated goods consumption, inventory restocking and favorable supply and demand fundamentals in our core markets."

First Quarter 2022 Discussion and Update on Business Conditions

Ocean Transportation:  The Company's container volume in the Hawaii service in the first quarter 2022 was 0.6 percent lower year-over-year.  The decrease was primarily due to lower eastbound volume.  During the quarter, we continued to see elevated hospitality-related demand as a result of strong domestic tourist arrivals and modest improvement in international visitor traffic.  In the near-term, we are cautiously optimistic on further economic recovery in Hawaii in 2022.  The positive trends include further improvement in the unemployment rate and increasing tourism traffic, including meaningful international visitor traffic later in the year, but incremental waves of COVID-19 variants present the possibility of further economic slowdowns and the loss of federal stimulus coupled with inflation and higher interest rates may impact discretionary income.   

In China, the Company's container volume in the first quarter 2022 increased 13.4 percent year-over-year.  The increase was a result of five more eastbound voyages than the prior year.  Volume demand in the quarter was driven by e‑commerce, garments and other goods.  Matson continued to realize a significant rate premium over the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index in the first quarter 2022 and achieved average freight rates that were considerably higher than in the year ago period.  Currently in the Transpacific tradelane, we are seeing supply chain challenges in China, primarily due to actions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, as well as continued supply chain constraints and congestion on the U.S. West Coast, elevated consumption trends, and inventory restocking.  Despite the near-term uncertainty presented by the supply chain challenges in China, we expect a combination of the current supply and demand factors to remain largely in place through at least the October peak season and continue to expect elevated demand for our China service for most of this year.