News / Supply Chain DHL's star performer, but forwarding division struggles

Tobias Meyer

Fresh from recording a 10.5% bounce in its year-to-date earnings, DHL Supply Chain has entered a joint-venture (JV) with Berlji Jucker (BJL) to further grow the logistics scene in the latter’s home market of Thailand.

With the German multinational posting its Q3 results yesterday, the Supply Chain division remains something of a standout performer, with ebit of €893m for the year-to-date, leaving it 10.5% up year on year, despite a 1% decline in revenues over the period, to €12.9bn.

During an earnings call attended by The Loadstar, Supply Chain went largely unmentioned – CEO Tobias Meyer pointing to efforts to expand the division and CFO Melanie Kreis commenting that it “continues to perform very well”.

But she added: “We see somewhat slower growth in at present with currency headwinds and impacts from the general environment. But structural growth is intact for that division as reflected in very good new business signings with €1.4bn new contract value in Q3.”

The JV deal with BJL points to this effort to bolster market presence, DHL noting it “provides strategic access to Thailand’s fast-growing and dynamic economy”, as the South-east Asian country transforms itself into a regional trade hub.

There were limited details on what the partnership will involve, but a statement pointed to “opportunities to cater to customers, new and existing, in the consumer goods, healthcare, and packaging verticals”.

The joint BJL-DHL statement added: “Beyond supporting BJC Big C and our subsidiaries, our goal is to elevate Thailand’s logistics standards to be on par with global benchmarks, while expanding opportunities into promising new markets particularly in healthcare.”

Perhaps part of the limited focus given to Supply Chain during the Q3 investor call was a more muted third-quarter performance, with ebit growth of just 1.6% year on year over the three month period, to €278m, albeit against the backdrop of a revenue decline of 0.4%, to €4.4bn.

More worryingly, DHL Global Forwarding, Freight (DGFF) continues to struggle to find volumes in an unarguably difficult market, with revenues dropping 9.2% year on year, to €4.5bn for the three months to October, prompting a 29.6% ebit dip, to €195m.

Ms Kreis told investors DHL was “clearly not where we want to be with DGFF”, but noted recently appointed divisional CEO Oscar de Bok was “implementing structural improvements”, while Mr Meyer stressed that 2026 needed “to be a year for growth” for DGFF.

“Oscar is making progress, but overall, I think we know that in Global Forwarding, we have a great dependency on industry trends as well, but that being said the environment is ripe for growth in 2026,” he added.

“Some of the moves in the broader industry landscape might be helpful for us in that regard. So that’s a strong focus. We want to absolutely stay customer-focused in Global Forwarding, and that is a clear focus for Oscar as well.”

Amid DGFF’s year-to-date performance, ebit was largely reflective of the third quarter, dropping 27.6% year on year for the nine months to October, although the revenue decline was marginally less substantive, down 4% year on year, to €13.9bn.