Friday 31 January 2014

UPS releases fourth quarter results

UPS, the American international parcel delivery company, published its fourth quarter results yesterday.

The company announced earlier in the month that diluted earnings per share for the quarter would be lower than initially anticipated, owing to bad weather and the need to take on an increased number of personnel due to unprecedented order volumes in the run up to Christmas. In spite of this, 2013 results generally compared favourably with the previous year and UPS have promised even better for 2014.


Revenue for the US domestic package, the largest branch of the company, rose 4.2% to $8.9 billion. The international package climbed 5.3% year-on-year from $3.2 to $3.37 billion while revenue from the Supply Chain & Freight division dropped 5.8%. 

Consolidated revenue for the quarter amounted to almost $15 million, an overall 2.8% increase from 2012's $14.57 billion Q4 turnover.

The fourth quarter's performance provided a good end for the US courier - revenue increased 2.4% to over $55 billion and total operating profit rose to $7,034 billion compared to $1,343 billion in 2012. 

Kurt Kuehn, UPS Chief Financial Officer, said, "While the year ended on a challenging note, we are confident in our ability to adapt and we expect much better results in 2014. UPS expects balanced profitability growth across all segments in a slightly better economic environment, resulting in full-year guidance of diluted earnings per share of $5.05 to $5.30, an 11%-to-16% increase over our 2013 adjusted results."

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