Profits Decline at Expeditors Even as Revenue Increases
First-quarter expenses rose faster than revenue for Expeditors International of Washington, so the freight forwarder remained profitable but at a lower level than a year ago.
The Seattle-based company said May 2 it earned $93.3 million, or 51 cents a share, on sales of $1.55 billion for the three months ended March 31. In the year-ago period it earned $96.6 million, or 53 cents, on revenue of $1.42 billion.
Quarterly net revenue — gross revenue less the cost of purchased transportation — grew by 2% to $527.6 million from $517.1 million.
“We continued to experience the rate pressure that we have seen in recent quarters. Over the long term, we expect this rate volatility to subside and that we will return to more historical pricing patterns. In the meantime, we continue to refine our processes and carefully execute against our strategy to position our company for further growth,” CEO Jeffrey Musser said in the company statement.
As for business volume, the company said kilograms of airfreight forwarded grew, year-over-year, for each month, January to March, and by a total of 16% for the quarter.
Ocean volumes grew in January and March but dipped in February. For the quarter ocean freight grew by 7%, year-over-year.
While quarterly gross revenue grew by 8.9%, expenses accelerated by 10.5% to $1.4 billion from $1.27 billion.
Quarterly operating income declined to $146.1 million from $151.8 million.
Expeditors ranks No. 6 on the Transport Topics Top 50 list of the largest logistics companies in North America.
