Damco, one of the world’s leading freight forwarding and logistics service providers, reports a 6% increase in Quarter 1 net revenue with a total of 773 million USD, compared to 728 million USD in 2012. EBIT ended up at 9 million USD for the first quarter, compared to 13 million USD in 2012.

Airfreight volumes showed rapid growth of 15% over 2012 which was well ahead of the market, enhanced by the acquisition in last quarter of 2012 of Pacific Network Global Logistics (PacNet). Q1 2013 Ocean freight volumes were up only slightly compared to the same period last year, at a modest growth rate of 1%.

Supply Chain Management volume growth accelerated further in Q1 2013 with 10% growth versus the same period last year, mainly driven by the impact of new customers and a strong pre-Chinese New Year uptake in volumes.

“Overall our performance in Q1 has been satisfactory, with solid growth in most products and underlying trading only slightly below 2012. In Q1 we made significant investments to adjust our business model - in light of the changing market – to make it more scalable and to enable further growth and profit improvement in the years to come. We will continue to make investments in the upcoming quarters, even if that will impact our reported results. This quarter we also completed the headquarters’ relocation, have made very good progress in rolling out our new Unity global IT platform and have successfully integrated the PacNet acquisition’’, comments Rolf Habben-Jansen, CEO of Damco.

He adds:
“In 2013 we will be taking some important steps forward in simplifying our business and further raising the efficiency of our operations. We are also planning to invest in growing our geographical footprint as we would like to be there where our customers need us to be in the future, which will mean expanding our network from around 350 to 600 offices over the next three years.”