Global Integrated Logistics Drives Success for Agility
9th May 2018
Emerging markets specialist logistics provider Agility has posted encouraging Q1 results. The Kuwait-based outfit reported a net profit of KD 18.9 million, or 15.2 fils per share, an increase of 29.8% over Q1 2017. Revenue for the quarter reached KD 371.8 million and EBITDA was KD 37.7 million. Its Global Integrated Logistics (GIL) arm was a key part of this success.
“Agility continues to deliver results. Our double-digit EBITDA growth affirms the company’s momentum over the past three years. GIL continues to drive profitability gains through strong performance in Ocean and Air Freight, in addition to improving its efficiency. Companies in the Infrastructure group posted healthy gains and are delivering consistent with their road map.” said Tarek Sultan, Agility CEO and Vice Chairman.
Agility Global Integrated Logistics
In Q1 2018, Global Integrated Logistics (GIL) gross revenue grew 15.7% to KD 278.1 million. Air freight revenue increased 22.1%, driven by strong volume growth (4.8% increase in air tonnage) and ocean freight revenue grew 14% as a result of an 11.5% increase in TEUs. Contract Logistics revenue increased 15.1% and road freight showed 8.4% revenue improvement in Q1 2018.
GIL’s Q1 net revenue (NR) rose 7.9% from the same period in 2017, primarily due to growth in freight forwarding and Contract Logistics. Air NR grew by 18.7% due to improving yields, and Ocean NR increased 7.1%. Contract Logistics NR increased by 5.8%. However, GIL’s NR margin was 23.3%, down from 24.9% during the same period a year earlier due to yield pressure in Road freight and Project Logistics. Regionally, Air freight and Ocean freight performed well in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas. Contract Logistics continued its solid growth, primarily in Middle East and Asia Pacific, as a result of effective utilization of facilities.
GIL continues to drive performance through its “Focus and Capability” strategy, which focuses on driving growth by committing to defined solutions, customer segments, sales productivity and efficient trade lane development. In addition, GIL is driving its technology-based transformation by building systems and solutions that enable business insight, efficiencies, and productivity for customers and operations. Further, it is developing tools to better serve customers online.
Sultan added: “We recently launched Shipa Freight, an online freight service aimed at a market with massive potential (featured here): the small and medium-size companies that account for most of the world’s businesses. Shipa Freight lets them get rate quotes and book, pay and track, ocean and air shipments around the world, all online in a matter of seconds.”