DACHSER’s Road Logistics division, encompassing the transportation and storage of industrial and consumer goods (European Logistics) as well as food (Food Logistics), saw a 1.8% rise in revenue to €5.8bn in 2023. However, there was a contrasting drop of 4.7% in the number of shipments and 6.5% in transported tonnage.
The European Logistics segment achieved revenue of €4.4bn, roughly matching the exceptional performance of 2022. Business performed well across European units, with Iberia leading the way with a revenue increase of over 2%. Despite this, overall shipment numbers and tonnage decreased due to Germany’s sluggish economy, which also adversely affected neighbouring countries in the North Central Europe region.
In 2023, the Food Logistics segment also experienced a prosperous financial year, recording a 9.7% revenue increase to €1.4bn. This revenue surge was driven by positive business growth in Germany, as well as from acquisitions such as Müller Fresh Food Logistics in the Netherlands and the remaining shares in DACHSER Hungary. DACHSER Food Logistics transported a total of 10.9m shipments, slightly up from the previous year, while tonnage decreased by 3.8%.
In the Air & Sea Logistics division, weak demand and increased capacity in air and sea freight had a significant impact. Plunging freight rates led to a 46.3% decrease in revenue compared to 2022, reaching €1.3bn. Although the number of shipments rose by 2.4%, tonnage fell by 7.9%.
Contract Logistics, involving transport, storage, and customer-specific value-added services, underwent substantial expansion in 2023. DACHSER invested in additional capacity, increasing pallet spaces to just under 400,000. Presently, DACHSER offers over 3m pallet spaces across 164 warehouse locations on five continents.
Looking ahead, Eling announced DACHSER’s intention to further integrate Road Logistics and Air & Sea business fields. “In the upcoming years, significant growth will stem from markets outside Europe. To continue delivering high-quality, reliable service globally, we aim to closely align the processes and systems of our two business fields to develop an integrated global, door-to-door groupage solution named ‘Global Groupage’.”
In 2023, DACHSER’s workforce expanded by over 1,100 individuals to approximately 34,000, reflecting the growth of sales and IT teams, as well as acquisitions such as Müller Fresh Food Logistics and ACA International.
Source: DACHSER
