C.H. Robinson reports Q3 EPS $1.40, consensus $1.30

Reports Q3 revenue $4.14B, consensus $4.22B. “But this is a new C.H. Robinson (CHRW), and we don’t use the macro environment as an excuse. We are a fundamentally different company than we were two years ago, illustrated by the company’s consistent outperformance versus the market,” Bozeman added. “Our third quarter results provide another proof point of the disciplined execution of our strategy. In NAST, we grew our combined truckload and LTL volume by approximately 3.0% year-over-year and demonstrably grew market share versus a 7.2% decline in the Cass Freight Shipment Index. This was accomplished while expanding gross margins for the 8th consecutive quarter and further increasing productivity and operating leverage while growing volume. This resulted in a 39% adjusted operating margin in NAST and further progress toward our 40% mid-cycle adjusted operating margin target for NAST. In Global Forwarding, we expanded gross margins by 380 basis points year-over-year through improved revenue management discipline. We also continued to improve our productivity, which has now increased by more than 55% in Global Forwarding since the end of 2022. This improvement in our operating leverage enabled us to achieve our 30% mid-cycle adjusted operating margin target in the third quarter, despite the difficult market conditions. With seven consecutive quarters of consistent outperformance through the disciplined execution of the strategy that we shared at our 2024 Investor Day, there is no doubt in our minds that we are on the right path to deliver sustainable outperformance. Our model, with an industry-leading cost to serve, is highly scalable and we expect it will improve further as we harness the evolving power of AI to drive automation across the quote-to-cash lifecycle of a load. We’re still in the early innings of our Lean AI journey – call it third inning in NAST and first inning in Global Forwarding. Lean AI is our unique, disciplined approach to AI innovation that transforms supply chains. By combining the principles of Lean methodology in our Robinson operating model with the power of AI, Lean AI is designed to maximize value and minimize waste for better outcomes. It is uniquely enabled by our leading AI technology, our expert logisticians and our Lean operating model that drives continuous improvement.”