Expeditors Short of Forecasts – Analyst Blog

Expeditors International of Washington Inc.’s (EXPD) fourth quarter net income of 32 cents per share was below both the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 28 cents and the year-ago earnings of 36 cents. For the full year 2009, the company’s earnings declined 19% to $1.11 per share compared to $1.37 in 2008. This compares favorably with the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.07 per share.

 

Total revenues and operating income in the quarter were $1.2 billion and $110.4 million, down 5% and 7% year-over-year, respectively. The declines reflected lower revenue in the Ocean Freight segment, offset partially by an increase in Airfreight and Customs Brokerage and Other segment revenues. For the full year 2009, total revenue and operating income declined 27% and 19%, respectively, to $4.1 billion and $385.0 million.

 

Operating expenses in the quarter were down 4% year-over-year to $1.14 billion, while for the year it declined 28% to $3.71 billion.

 

 

Airfreight Services net revenues in the quarter increased 8% year-over-year to $628.1 million. Despite the capacity challenges in the airfreight markets, the company reported airfreight tonnages to be up 16% for the year and 36% for December, which was encouraging. For the year, Airfreight revenue declined 28% to $1.83 billion.

 

Ocean Freight and Ocean Services net revenue decreased 24% and 35% to $348.3 million and 1.3 billion, respectively, in the quarter and the full year. Quarterly ocean freight container counts were 5% lower than 2008 levels, which was the smallest quarterly lower that the company saw all year. December counts were up 4% on a year-over-year basis, marking the first monthly increase this year.

 

Customs Brokerage and Other Services net revenues in the quarter increased 1% year-over-year to $270.5 million, while it decreased 13% to $963.3 million for the year.

 

Geographically, revenues in North America, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa, Middle East and India, and Australasia declined 11%, 13%, 2%, 8%, 4% and 21%, respectively, in the quarter. For the year, it declined 23%, 20%, 31%, 27%, 15% and 16%, respectively.

 

 

Expeditors’ balance sheet remains solid with no debt and $925.9 million in cash at the end of 2009. The company’s capital expenditures in the quarter were $9.4 billion and $34.7 billion for the year.