While October is the traditionally the peak month of the annual shipping season as retailers bring in merchandise for the holiday season, July’s figures appear likely to stand as the peak for 2010. Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to be up 16% in September, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.


U.S. ports handled 1.38 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units in July, the latest month for which actual numbers are available. That was up 5% from June and 25% from July 2009. It was the eighth month in a row to show a year-over-year improvement after December broke a 28-month streak of year-over-year declines. (One TEU is equal to one 20-foot cargo container.)


August was estimated at 1.35 million TEU, a 17% increase over last year. September is forecast at 1.32 million TEU, up 16% from last year; October at 1.3 million TEU, up 9%; November at 1.2 million TEU, up 11%; and December at 1.11 million TEU, up 2%. January 2011 is forecast at 1.06 million TEU, down 2% from January 2010. The large year-over-year percent increases are partly due to easy comparisons against unusually low numbers last year.


The first half of 2010 was estimated at 6.9 million TEU, up 17% from the same period last year. The full year is forecast at 14.5 million TEU, which would be up 15% from the 12.7 million TEU in 2009, which was the lowest since the 12.5 million TEU reported in 2003.