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ArcBest Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCB) provided its regular monthly update on business trends on Monday.
The freight shipping company said moving into Q3, recent changes in LTL market dynamics have contributed to improved revenue trends in the Asset-Based segment. As a result of profitable account opportunities, the company is currently targeting total average daily shipments of approximately 20K shipments per day compared to the 19.5K shipments-per-day target in July. So far in August, the Asset-Based segment has experienced more than a 20% increase in core, LTL-rated shipments per day when compared to June.
ArcBest (ARCB) said the industry pricing environment continues to be rational and is improving because of the recent market changes. The shift in ArcBest’s (ARCB) Asset-Based business mix, combined with improved yield management opportunities, was noted to have significantly improved Asset-Based yield metrics. Excluding periods impacted by the pandemic, the historical average sequential change in ArcBest’s Asset-Based operating ratio in the Q3 compared to Q2 has been relatively flat. Compared to Q2, ArcBest (ARCB) expects that the Asset-Based segment will have increased costs of approximately 300 to 400 basis points associated with the implementation of ABF Freight’s new labor contract. However, based on cost savings actions implemented to improve segment profitability combined with better market conditions, ArcBest (ARCB) expects a modest improvement to Q3 non-GAAP Asset-Based operating ratio compared to Q2.
In the Asset-Light operating segment, revenue per day was down 19.0% year-over-year in August vs. -19.9% in July and revenue per shipment was down 27.0% in August vs. -27.6% in July. In the Asset-Based operating segment, billed revenue per day was down 2.0% year-over-year in August vs. -11.13% in July.