The freight transport company's intermodal segment, its largest, had the most robust profit growth in the quarter, boosted by higher fuel surcharges and truck capacity shortages.
Second-quarter net income rose to $65.7 million, or 53 cents a share, from $52.1 million, or 40 cents a share, a year ago, the Lowell, Arkansas-based company said.
Analysts, on average, expected profit of 53 cents a share and revenue of $1.11 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 22 percent to $1.15 billion from $942.8 million a year ago.
The company's intermodal segment, which it refers to as JBI, had a 29 percent jump in both revenue and operating income in the quarter.
It's dedicated contract services segment, or DCS, had a 16 percent revenue rise and 23 percent operating income increase. A higher truck count and roughly 2 percent increase in productivity, or revenue per truck per week, drove up revenue in the quarter, the company said.
"During lingering economic pressures and unsteadiness in the general freight markets, JBI and DCS once again revealed a higher degree of resiliency than that of traditional, full truckload transportation models," Chief Executive John N. Roberts said in a statement.
J.B. Hunt said debt outstanding grew to $664 million in the first half of the year, from $617 million in the same period last year and $654 million in the second half of 2010.
During the first six months of the year, it used $85 million to buy about 2 million of its common shares. On June 30, J.B. Hunt had about $164 million left under a $500 million share buyback authorization. (Reuters)
