As a flavour of my logistics industry analysis, here are a couple of excerpts from recent mail-outs by my longstanding client Transport Intelligence.

On Friday 2nd May 2025, CEO of Transport Intelligence Prof John Manners-Bell wrote:

"Writing in his analysis of UPS’s quarterly results and outlook, our correspondent Richard Shrubb comments, ‘The huge shifts in trade policy are a headache that won’t be resolved until and if the grand plans of domestic policymakers come to fruit. Until it all settles down, nothing is certain…’

This pretty much sums up the sentiment of all the companies presently reporting their results and outlook. Whilst the performance of companies such as UPS, DSV and DHL (all included in today’s bumper edition of Logistics Briefing) have been more than acceptable in this difficult environment, opinions on what the trade crisis means for their businesses are mixed – UPS thinks there will be a shift from air to sea whilst DHL believes the opposite...

In the midst of this uncertainty, DSV is about to embark on a massive integration of the former Schenker business. However, CEO Jens Lund does not seem overly phased by the task: ‘Of course, we’re also going to feel it. But typically, we can figure out basically to adjust our infrastructure so that it fits the situation.’"

JMB wrote on Weds 30th April:

"Meanwhile Richard Shrubb describes how the fall out from the US-China trade war is being felt in North American trucking industry. The CEO of Canadian trucking company, TFI International, Alain Bédard bemoans that falling Chinese demand for US agricultural products has meant that farmers haven’t been buying tractors and demand for its flatbed services has fallen. Staying in North America, railroad giant Union Pacific published its first quarter results. Described as ‘solid’ by its management, the company highlighted that finished vehicles and automotive parts volumes were holding up, driven by demand through the West Coast ports. However, CEO Jim Vena also commented that, ‘There are still a lot of unknowns related to volumes and the economy.’

With so much uncertainty, predicting how 2025 will play out for the supply chain industry is almost impossible. Nevertheless, it seems that global and regional logistics companies are placing faith in their capacity to ride out the storm, taking advantage of their ability to flex their services in line with fast-changing market conditions."

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