Old Dominion's third-quarter revenue, profit fall on lower freight demand
Oct 23 (Reuters) -Old Dominion Freight Line ODFL.O reported a fall in its third-quarter revenue and profit on Wednesday, hurt by lower volumes because of weak freight demand.
Shares of the Thomasville, North Carolina-based less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier, which caters to companies in the retail, manufacturing, automotive and healthcare sectors, were down nearly 3% before the bell.
LTL companies function by carrying multiple shipments from different customers on a single truck, which are then routed through a network of service centers where they get transferred to other trucks with similar destinations.
Old Dominion handled a total of 2.2 million tons of shipments in the third quarter, down 3.2% from the year earlier.
CEO Marty Freeman said the company's results reflect the ongoing softness in the domestic economy.
Analysts see this soft demand environment to continue for the rest half of the year and expect an improvement in 2025.
The company's total revenue fell 3% to $1.47 billion in the quarter. Profit per share dropped 7.1% to $1.43.
Its operating ratio, which indicates operating expenses as a percentage of revenue, deteriorated to 72.7% from 70.6% a year earlier.
"The decrease in revenue had a deleveraging effect on many of our operating expenses, which contributed to the 110-basis-point increase in our overhead costs as a percent of revenue," Freeman said.
The carrier said its fall in revenue was primarily due to a 4.8% decrease in LTL tons per day, which reflects a 3.4% decline in LTL shipments a day and 1.4% dip in LTL weight per shipment.
Reporting by Abhinav Parmar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar
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