AD Ports Group has reached the global top 20 rankings of port operators for the first time, according to a recent industry survey. Ranked 19th by Drewry, a U.K. firm specializing in container port analysis, this achievement highlights the increasing significance of AD Ports Group’s operations. The company has experienced rapid growth due to new operational concessions and its 2023 acquisition of Noatum, which manages 16 terminals in Spain.
Expanding global presence
Currently, AD Ports Group operates 33 terminals across eight countries, including the UAE, Spain, and Pakistan, with 27 of these terminals already in operation. New terminals are scheduled to open in the UAE, alongside concessions in the Republic of Congo, Egypt, and Angola. The latest Drewry ranking, featured in the 2024/2025 annual industry report, assessed operators based on container throughput—measured by volume—using data from 2022/2023.
Remarkable container throughput growth
In 2023, AD Ports Group reported a container throughput of 4.91 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), reflecting a 13 percent increase year-on-year. Total volumes at its UAE terminals rose by 6 percent to 4.6 million TEUs, which includes six months of contributions from Noatum after its integration into the Group. The Ports Cluster accounted for 16 percent of consolidated revenue and 23 percent of adjusted EBITDA in 2023.
Growth in the Ports Cluster has continued vigorously this year. In the second quarter of 2024, revenue surged 83 percent year-on-year, and 13 percent on a like-for-like basis, reaching AED563 million.
Exploring new market opportunities
Contributions to this growth also came from the Group’s management of four berths on the East Wharf of Karachi Port, Pakistan’s key port, which began operations last year under a 50-year operating agreement with Karachi Gateway Terminal Limited (KGTL).
The Noatum acquisition and the new concession in Karachi enhanced AD Ports Group’s global terminal capacity by 14 percent, bringing it to 9.7 million TEUs in 2023.
AD Ports is strategically utilizing multipurpose terminals to explore new market opportunities, focusing primarily on regions including the Indian Subcontinent, Red Sea, Mediterranean, South Asia, and Africa.
In 2023 and the first half of 2024, AD Ports Group entered agreements to develop and operate multipurpose terminals in Safaga (Egypt), Pointe Noire (Republic of Congo), and Luanda (Angola). Preliminary agreements have also been established for terminals at East Port Said and Sokhna in Egypt, as well as Chittagong in Bangladesh.
Read more: UAE’s AD Ports Group embraces digitalization, big data to optimize smart operations
Joint ventures, future capacity goals
In June 2024, East Africa Gateway Limited—a joint venture between AD Ports Group and Adani—secured a 95 percent stake in Tanzania International Container Terminal Services (TICTS), which manages berths 8-11 at the Dar es Salaam port in Tanzania. These initiatives position AD Ports Group to potentially increase its terminal capacity by over 60 percent to 14.5 million TEUs within the next five years.
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