Expeditors International of Washington’s EXPD fourth-quarter 2024 earnings of $1.68 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.43. The bottom line increased 54.1% year over year, owing to strong growth in air tonnage and ocean volumes. Total revenues of $3 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.62 billion and increased 29.7% year over year.

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Airfreight tonnage and ocean container volume increased 11% and 14%, respectively, year over year. We expected airfreight tonnage to increase 11.7% from fourth-quarter 2023 actuals.

Operating income increased 51% year over year to $301 million. Total operating expenses increased 24% to $2.65 billion.

Airfreight Services revenues increased 22.7% year over year to $1.06 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. Ocean freight and ocean services revenues surged 77.5% to $908.4 million. Customs Brokerage and other services revenues increased 9.3% year over year to $983.2 million.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Expeditors repurchased 2 million shares at an average price of $120.14 per share. EXPD returned $1.1 billion to its shareholders through stock repurchases and dividends in 2024. This was the third consecutive year that the transportation company returned more than $1 billion of capital to its shareholders.

EXPD exited 2024 with cash and cash equivalents of $1.15 billion compared with $1.51 billion in 2023-end.

EXPD’s Zacks Rank

Expeditors currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Q4 Performances of Other Transportation Companies

Delta Air Lines DAL reported fourth-quarter 2024 earnings (excluding 56 cents from non-recurring items) of $1.85 per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.76. Earnings increased 44.5% on a year-over-year basis due to low fuel costs.

DAL’s revenues of $15.56 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $14.99 billion and increased 9.4% on a year-over-year basis, driven by strong holiday travel demand. Adjusted operating revenues (excluding third-party refinery sales) totaled $14.44 billion, up 5.7% year over year. Passenger revenues, which accounted for 82.4% of total revenues, increased 5% year over year to $12.82 billion.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services JBHT posted fourth-quarter 2024 earnings per share of $1.53, which fell short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.62. However, the bottom line increased 4.1% on a year-over-year basis.  

JBHT’s total operating revenues of $3.15 billion narrowly beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.13 billion but declined 4.8% year over year. The decrease was mainly due to lower fuel surcharge revenues and yield pressure in its Intermodal segment.

JBHT’s fourth-quarter 2024 operating revenues of $2.78 billion, excluding fuel surcharge revenues, decreased 2% from the year-ago reported quarter. Total operating income for the reported quarter increased 2% year over year to $207 million.

United Airlines UAL reported solid fourth-quarter 2024 results, with both earnings and revenues surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Quarterly earnings per share (excluding 31 cents from non-recurring items) of $3.26 surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.01. The bottom line increased 63% on a year-over-year basis. The reported figure exceeded the company’s guided range of $2.50-$3.

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