US fleet management company, Ryder, has reported total revenue growth of $2.2 billion USD (€196.9 million) – up 15 per cent – for Q1 2019.
Revenue and earnings before tax grew in all three business segments (Fleet Management Solutions, Dedicated Transport Solutions and Supply Chain Solutions), reflecting new business and higher volumes.
“We are pleased to report double-digit operating revenue and earnings growth, driven by strong performance in our contractual businesses,” said Ryder Chairman and CEO, Robert Sanchez.
“This growth reflects continued outsourcing trends and the impact of our sales and marketing initiatives. We out-performed our forecast, primarily due to better than anticipated impact of the new lease accounting standard and to a lesser extent stronger performance in ChoiceLease and Dedicated.
“We are encouraged by accelerated growth in the ChoiceLease fleet, which increased organically by a record 4,200 vehicles this quarter, with 40 per cent of the growth coming from customers new to outsourcing. Once these customers outsource their fleets to us, we typically expand and retain these relationships for decades.
“Our transactional rental and used vehicles sales businesses performed in line with our expectations. Additionally, used vehicle inventory levels remain within our target range.
“In both Dedicated Transportation Solutions and Supply Chain Solutions, we saw earnings improvement reflecting revenue growth and stronger operating performance.
“Turning to our longer-term strategic initiatives, we’re excited by the positive results we saw from our Atlanta pilot of COOP by Ryder and have expanded the platform to South Florida. COOP is the first and only asset sharing platform of its kind for commercial vehicles, which enables fleet owners to generate revenue from their under-utilised vehicles and provides an asset-light earnings source for Ryder,” he said.
(Image: Ryder Chairman and CEO, Robert Sanchez.)