In a long awaited announcement, Deutsche Bahn today announced that it has started the DB Schenker sale process. According to Deutsche Bahn, DB Schenker has a solid position within the market and is a top four logistics company globally.
Europe is a key geographic area for DB Schenker, it being its home market. DB Schenker provides a range of services globally, including air freight, sea freight, road transport, contract logistics and other services (project logistics, events and exhibition logistics, for example). DB Schenker has some 76,600 employees at over 1,850 locations in more than 130 countries.
The following analysis is based on research conducted by Transport Intelligence in 2023; covering mainly European markets.
In Germany, it is not the market leader for freight forwarding, as that position is held by Kuehne + Nagel. It is ranked fourth, however.
In France, its Air and Sea forwarding activities are smaller than its road and groupage operations, which account for most of its activity.
It is a similar pattern in Denmark, where its land operations (road transport) account for most of its business there. It is ranked sixth largest forwarder in that country, by revenue.
In Belgium, the company’s business is almost all road freight forwarding.
Schenker Finland’s revenue is mostly accounted for by road transport, but it also has operations in Logistics (contract logistics) and air and sea forwarding.
Italy is a little different for DB Schenker, where it has a stronger freight forwarding position in the market, where it ranks second to domestic player Savino del Bene.
In Spain, Schenker has roughly equal revenue in air and sea forwarding activities as it does in road transport activities, but is ranked fourth in terms of its forwarding revenues in the country.
DB Schenker is ranked second in freight forwarding in Austria, behind Kuehne + Nagel but ahead of DHL and DSV.
The company is ranked fourth in Sweden in freight forwarding but it has a much larger land transport business in that country.
In Norway, DB Schenker is ranked second in freight forwarding, but again has a domestic land transport business which is more than twice as large.
DB Schenker in Poland is again a fourth placed freight forwarding business, and also has contract logistics operations in the country.
In Ireland, a smaller market compared to others, DB Schenker is ranked third based on TI estimates.
DB Schenker is ranked third in freight forwarding in The Netherlands, where it also engages in road transport (larger than freight forwarding) contract logistics and fair (event) logistics.
In the Czech Republic, DB Schenker holds a relatively stronger position than other markets. It ranks second in terms of freight forwarding revenues (TI estimates).
TI also researched DB Schenker’s position in contract logistics markets and freight forwarding markets in Portugal, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
The company’s presence in Asia markets is less strong. It is not ranked in the top 5 companies in China, Japan or South Korea, for example.
Transport Intelligence provides a mergers and acquisitions market share service for those acquisitions that are referred to competition authorities for approval. We have conducted a number of similar exercises on behalf of clients that have sought market share data for contract logistics, freight forwarding and road freight for specific jurisdictions.
For more information, please contact Michael Clover: [email protected] +44 (0)1666 519907
