Kuehne + Nagel grew twice as fast as the market with seafreight volumes increasing by 8 per cent. In the first nine months of the year the company handled 2.9 million TEU, an additional 211,000 TEU more than in the same period of 2013. In a difficult market environment the volume development in South America was rather slow. Import activities into the USA increased and Kuehne + Nagel gained additional market shares particularly in the European and North American import business. On a 9-month comparison Kuehne + Nagel was able to keep the EBIT-to-gross profit margin (conversion rate) stable at a high level with 30.2 per cent (previous year: 30.6). Due to negative currency effects gross profit and the operational result were slightly below the previous year's figures. Currency adjusted gross profit increased by 4.1 per cent and the operational result by 2.4 per cent.