UPS Inc. stays the most important for-hire transportation supplier in North America. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg Information)
[Stay on top of transportation news: Get TTNews in your inbox.]
For the most important trucking corporations in North America, the previous a number of months have been something however enterprise as typical. The steep and continuously altering tariffs enacted by the second Trump administration have injected a heavy dose of uncertainty into the U.S. financial system whereas roiling provide chains and altering freight patterns.
These larger taxes on imports, largely geared toward bolstering home manufacturing and bringing manufacturing again to america in the long term, have in the meanwhile created an unclear outlook for companies, a lot of which have paused main selections whereas ready for the mud to decide on worldwide commerce.
The tumult attributable to the tariffs — and the uncertainty surrounding them — has extended a prolonged interval of hardship for motor carriers already strained by a persistently comfortable freight market.
This newest version of Transport Subjects’ High 100 For-Rent Carriers record, which ranks the trade’s largest trucking corporations based mostly on 2024 income, doesn’t but mirror the influence of this 12 months’s commerce coverage shifts, however it does illustrate how weak freight market circumstances have continued to squeeze margins for transportation suppliers.
Monetary outcomes among the many High 100 have been blended, with the record divided about evenly between corporations that managed to develop their companies in 2024 and people who posted year-over-year income declines, indicating that the trade continues to be struggling to climb out of the down market that has endured for about three years.
Among the many corporations that offered web earnings knowledge, about three quarters posted worse leads to 2024 in contrast with 2023, together with some that noticed deep declines in profitability and a number of other that posted vital losses.
Typically, less-than-truckload carriers tended to carry out higher final 12 months than their truckload counterparts.
The highest of the record stays principally unchanged with the highest seven corporations every retaining the identical rank as a 12 months in the past, however Richmond, Va.-based LTL hauler Estes Specific climbed three spots to No. 8 after rising its income to greater than $5.8 billion.
The up to date record additionally illustrates how mergers and acquisitions continued to change the trade’s enterprise panorama final 12 months.
No. 7 Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, already the trade’s largest truckload provider, prolonged the attain of its less-than-truckload enterprise by buying the regional LTL operations of Los Angeles-based Reliable Freeway Specific in July 2024. DHE father or mother firm Reliable Provide Chain Providers ranked No. 79 on final 12 months’s High 100 record.
No. 10 Schneider, in the meantime, expanded its devoted fleet operations by its $390 million buy of Cowan Programs in late 2024. Cowan ranked No. 63 a 12 months in the past.
Additional down the record, No. 76 USA Truck’s father or mother firm, Germany-based transportation and logistics supplier DB Schenker, was acquired by world logistics big DSV in late April for about 14.3 billion euros.
Different main modifications are on the horizon. Late final 12 months, No. 2 FedEx Corp. introduced a plan to spin off its less-than-truckload FedEx Freight division as a stand-alone, publicly traded firm. FedEx expects to finish that separation by mid-2026.
This 12 months’s High 100 record options a number of new names.
No. 47 Bridgeway Connects, previously often called Transport Investments Inc., supplies heavy haul, flatbed and specialised transportation and logistics companies by quite a lot of manufacturers and enterprise items. Bridgeway, based mostly close to Pittsburgh, is a portfolio firm of personal fairness agency Gemspring Capital.
The up to date High 100 additionally combines the operations of sister corporations Transervice Logistics and Lily Transportation, which collectively rank No. 72 on the record. Personal fairness agency ZS Fund, the bulk proprietor of Transervice, acquired Lily in 2023. Each corporations supply devoted contract carriage and logistics companies.
Returning to the record this 12 months at No. 85 is trucking and logistics supplier Purple Basic, a subsidiary of Charlotte, N.C.-based bottling firm Coca-Cola Consolidated.
Additionally becoming a member of the High 100 are No. 90 United Imaginative and prescient Logistics, a flatbed and heavy haul provider headquartered in Lafayette, La.; No. 92 Cassens Transport, a car hauler based mostly in Edwardsville, In poor health.; and No. 94 Gulf Winds Worldwide, a supplier of container drayage, transloading and truckload transportation based mostly in Seabrook, Texas.
The Transport Subjects High 100 and trade sector lists introduced on this publication rank the most important for-hire carriers in america and Canada based mostly on 2024 income.
Many of the info is from corporations’ responses to an annual survey performed by Transport Subjects, together with knowledge from monetary studies and different public sources. SJ Consulting Group offered income estimates for some corporations that didn’t report up to date info.
