DHL Group saw its air and ocean freight volumes rise in the second quarter of this year, contributing to a slight increase in year on year group revenue.
The express and logistics giant registered a 5.3% increase in air volumes to 437,000 tons in the second quarter, while its ocean volumes grew by 6.4%.
Second quarter air revenues increased by 3.6% year on year to €1.5bn and air gross profits were down 16.9% to €245m.
The overall forwarding and freight business saw second-quarter revenues edge up 0.8% to €4.9bn, while gross profit fell 7.9% to €1.2bn and EBIT was down 28.1% to €279m.
The air volume increase lags behind that of rivals Kuehne+Nagel and DSV, which reported increases of 7.3% and 10% in the second quarter respectively.
Melanie Kreis, chief financial officer for DHL Group, commented: “Air and ocean freight volumes further improved in the second quarter from a low starting level.
“However, we are not observing a broad-based recovery of global trade yet.”
The group said that it had “met market expectations” in its second-quarter performance in what had been a “persistently weak economic environment”.
While the first half of this year did not feature any broad economic upturn, DHL expects the second half of the year to benefit from the “typical positive effects” of peak season.
“In conjunction with ongoing earnings and cost management, the group is convinced it is well on track to meet its targets for the 2024 financial year,” a DHL statement declared.
Kreis affirmed: “The quarter was as expected. We said back in spring that we expect a tangible recovery in the world economy – and thus tailwinds for our global logistics activities – in the second half of the year at the earliest.
“Despite the persistently sluggish global economy, we improved revenue by 2.7% in the second quarter.
“Operating profit was at €1.35bn – fully in line with our expectations and significantly above the pre-pandemic level.”
Express
DHL’s Express division earned a double-digit EBIT margin in the second quarter, despite the “challenging environment”, although overall shipment volumes declined somewhat (and B2B shipment volumes increased slightly).
The overall express business saw second-quarter revenues increase 1.6% to €6.2bn, while Ebit fell 24.2% to €683m.
According to DHL, the division also “addressed the weak economic environment with productivity improvements, network optimisation, and ongoing yield and cost management”.
Supply Chain
The Supply Chain division continued to benefit from the growth trends in e-commerce and omnishoring, DHL stated. New business, contract renewals and expanding e-commerce contributed to higher revenue.
Revenues at the division rose by 2.8% in the second quarter to €4.35bn.
eCommerce
DHL’s eCommerce division saw continued revenue and volume growth, It said that EBIT improvement in the second quarter “particularly reflected ongoing investments to expand networks and improve service quality”.
The firm's e-commerce revenues increased by 10.5% to €1.7bn and EBIT was down 14.1% to €67m.
Solid performance
The overall DHL Group registered a 2.7% increase in Q2 revenues to €20.6bn, EBIT was down 20.2% to €1.35bn and net profit attributable to shareholders slid 23.9% to €744m.
Kreis describes general performance across the various divisions as having been “very solid, and fully within our expectations given the economic parameters.
“Supply Chain's performance was particularly positive,” she enthused, pointing out: “The division operates more independently of short-term global economic development than its sister divisions and made further gains in revenue and earnings.
“The marked increase in revenue at eCommerce is also pleasing, and impressively underscores the structural e-commerce trend.
“This also proves that our structural growth drivers of omnishoring, e-commerce, sustainability, and digitalisation are sound and offer further growth opportunities for us.
“The other DHL divisions tend to react more strongly to the global economy. That was also totally in line with our expectations.”
As for the future: “Our current Strategy 2025 has carried us effectively through the challenges of recent years and gives us a strong foundation,” Kreis said.
“Strategy 2030 is based on this framework. We continue to see major opportunities here in the coming years, so our focus is clearly on growth and leadership culture.
“We have to become even faster and more dynamic in an ever-changing world. With our Strategy 2030, we want to make a very good company even better,” she concluded.
