EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. is reporting its financial results for the quarter ending March 31 with a gross profit increase of 1.5%.
“Our first quarter results reflect progress in the disciplined execution of the strategies that we shared at our Investor Day in December — to take market share and expand our margins.,” said Dave Bozeman, president, CEO. “We’re not waiting for a market recovery to improve our financial results, and the strategies that the Robinson team is executing are relevant in any market environment. In our North American Surface Transportation business, we outgrew the market in both truckload and less-than-truckload (“LTL”) while expanding gross margins and improving productivity — both year-over-year and sequentially. In our Global Forwarding business, we continued to win new business and optimize our expenses through further increases in productivity. Overall, we delivered a 39% year-over-year increase in our enterprise’s income from operations. And regardless of the market environment, we will continue to lean into the self-help initiatives that enabled our first quarter market share growth and margin expansion.”
Harnessing AI
“This includes continuing to arm our industry-leading talent with innovative tools that help us materially elevate the customer and carrier experience,” Bozeman said. “We are innovating to harness the power of artificial intelligence and driving automation across the full lifecycle of a load, which gives our customers better service, while also helping us improve our performance by automating tasks that free up our talented people to work on more strategic and higher value work.”
Summary of First Quarter of 2025 Results Compared to the First Quarter of 2024
- Total revenues decreased 8.3% to $4.0 billion, primarily driven by the divestiture of our Europe Surface Transportation business, lower volume in our North America truckload services, and lower pricing in our ocean services.
- Gross profits increased 1.5% to $657.4 million. Adjusted gross profits increased 2.3% to $673.1 million, primarily driven by higher adjusted gross profit per transaction in our truckload and LTL services.
- Operating expenses decreased 6.5% to $496.2 million. Personnel expenses decreased 8.1% to $348.6 million, primarily due to cost optimization efforts and productivity improvements, the divestiture of our Europe Surface Transportation business, and prior year restructuring charges related to workforce reductions. Average employee headcount declined 11.0%. Other selling, general and administrative (“SG&A”) expenses decreased 2.5% to $147.7 million, primarily due to restructuring charges in the prior year related to the impairment of internally developed software.
- Income from operations totaled $176.9 million, up 39.1% due to both the increase in adjusted gross profit and the decrease in operating expenses. Adjusted operating margin(1) of 26.3% increased 700 basis points.
- Interest and other income/expense, net totaled $20.1 million of expense, consisting primarily of $16.8 million of interest expense, which decreased $5.3 million versus last year due to a lower average debt balance and lower variable interest rates, and a $3.4 million net loss from foreign currency revaluation and realized foreign currency gains and losses.
- The effective tax rate in the quarter was 13.7%, compared to 15.8% in the first quarter of 2024. The lower rate in the first quarter of 2025 was driven by higher tax benefits related to stock-compensation deliveries, partially offset by lower U.S. tax credits and the impact of higher pre-tax income.
- Net income totaled $135.3 million, up 45.6% from a year ago. Diluted EPS of $1.11 increased 42.3%. Adjusted diluted EPS(1) of $1.17 increased 36.0%.
New Operating Model
“Our people have further embraced our new operating model and the discipline needed to generate higher highs and higher lows across market cycles,” Bozeman said. “Despite a challenging freight market, they like the transformation happening at Robinson and the momentum that we have. The vast experience of our resilient employees, and the value they bring to our customers and carriers, are reflected in our Q1 results.”
Tariff Uncertainties
“More recently, new tariffs and fluid trade policies have created market uncertainty and a lack of clarity, making planning activities more difficult and causing many customers to adopt a wait-and-see approach until they understand the impact on consumer spending and global demand,” said Bozeman. “While we are certainly not immune to global market dynamics, we remain confident in our strategy and our people. Nothing about the current environment changes that.”
Employee Appreciation
“I want to thank our people for their relentless efforts to provide exceptional service to our customers and carriers, for embracing the Robinson operating model and continuing to execute with discipline, and for continuing to support each other as we navigate a changing marketplace,” Bozeman said. “We’ve built a resilient organization, with a multi-horizon strategy that looks around corners and is underpinned by an operating model that provides stability by mandating execution of the strategy. I believe the strategies, disciplines and practices that we have implemented at Robinson can endure through a prolonged freight recession, through a market inflection, and through any part of the freight cycle.”
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
