Expeditors has reported year-on-year air tonnage growth of 9% in the second quarter, while ocean container growth was more muted at 4%.
Such volume growth, in concert with an increasing rate environment, saw company revenues increase by 13% to $1.7bn. However, net revenues were up by just 2% to $564m, and operating income fell by 6% to $168m.
By division, air revenues increased by 15.4%, ocean sales grew by 13.7%, while customs brokerage and other services reported growth of 10.1%.
Jeffrey S. Musser, President and Chief Executive Officer of Expeditors, remarked: “Volumes remain strong across all of our services and we believe we continue to take profitable market share.
“Our order management, warehousing and distribution, Transcon, and customs brokerage businesses performed exceptionally well during the quarter. While we experienced similar margin pressures that we have seen in recent quarters in our air and ocean offerings, we recorded some of the highest freight volumes in our company’s history.
“Global demand for air and ocean capacity continues to be stronger than we have seen in the past few years, which has led to a scarcity of favorable pricing. As the rate environment continues to shift, we are being increasingly disciplined in how we work both with our customers and with our carrier partners to secure access to capacity. In June, we initiated rate increases in certain high-volume lanes in response to the current market and expect to see strong demand, tight capacity, and rate volatility to continue throughout the remainder of the year.”
Source: Expeditors
