Overview
- UPS, which reported results Tuesday, posted $22.9 billion in third-quarter revenue, adjusted EPS of $1.69 and net income of $1.16 billion, beating analyst expectations and prompting a raise to about $92.6 billion for full-year revenue.
- The company finished an 18-month "glide down" of Amazon parcel volume that lowered average daily U.S. package volumes but helped raise U.S. revenue per package by roughly 6.1 percent.
- UPS is accelerating network automation, including a large RFID rollout that will touch billions of packages and replace manual barcode scans to lower operating cost per piece and improve package visibility.
- Looking to the holidays, UPS forecast about $25.7 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, expects U.S. daily volume to climb roughly 25 percent sequentially, and plans to hire about 100,000 seasonal workers while using more variable capacity instead of rented aircraft and trailers.
- FedEx reported similar beat-and-raise results, indicating sector-wide pricing strength that lets parcel carriers prioritize higher-margin customers and could reshape how e-commerce sellers and major shippers contract for delivery services.