Development in the relevant markets
Land transport
Europe
- The European land transport market was marked by declining demand for transport capacity in 2023. The main reason for this was the slowdown in the economy caused by inflation. Lower demand led to increased availability of transport capacity in the market. Nevertheless, freight rates only fell slightly, as they continued to be influenced by the lack of drivers and the high diesel and energy prices.
- DB Schenker maintained its market-leading position.
Americas
- After highly dynamic development in the previous year, the land transport market in the USA and Canada weakened significantly in 2023. The problem of excess freight capacities persisted and led to insolvencies. In the USA, the economy continued to be impacted by high inflation, rising interest rates and diesel prices. These factors had an impact on the transport and freight sectors due to lower demand for freight and falling rates.
- Volume growth was limited across the entire region, with the exception of Brazil, which remained strong in 2023. Mexico generally followed the declining volume trend in the USA, but to a much lesser extent than in North America overall.
Asia/Pacific
- The war in Ukraine continued to present major challenges to business in the Eurasian corridor in 2023. Demand for land transport was at a very low level. Many customers preferred maritime traffic, also due to significantly lower freight rates. In the core markets of China and India, there were slight recovery effects in the shipment volumes and in freight rates in September and October 2023.
- Although the international land transport market in Asia was robust overall, it was under great pressure in terms of margins due to the strong competitiveness of the region.
Air freight
The effects of uncertainties concerning global geopolitical and financial policy were also noticeable in the demand for air freight transport. As a result, 2023 was marked by significant weakness in the air freight market.
2023 had a weak start and the summer months did not bring any noticeable recovery. In the second half of the year, however, business with highly perishable and low-priced e-commerce goods from Asia in particular rose sharply.
Due to the very dynamic increase in e-commerce business, the available air freight capacity in the last months of 2023 was concentrated on a few connections to and from Asia. Overall, this led to a regional imbalance in the available capacity with correspondingly volatile development of freight rates and income in the air freight market.
DB Schenker recorded a declining volume in 2023.
Ocean freight
In the course of 2023, ocean freight rates on the main routes continued to fall from the all-time highs reached in the previous year. Macroeconomic influences such as persistently high inflation and higher interest rates had a noticeably dampening effect on demand. At the same time, the available capacity increased significantly due to the construction of many new ships. These effects placed freight rates under further pressure and pushed them below the cost-covering level in some cases. Burdens also resulted from the limited navigability of the Panama Canal due to the lack of water in Central America, and from attacks on ships in the Red Sea which led to disruptions on the affected trade routes.
In this difficult environment for container shipping, DB Schenker’s development was similar to the level of its
competitors.
Contract logistics
After the contract logistics market recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels in the previous year, growth continued in 2023. However, growth slowed somewhat due to economic downturns, inflationary tendencies and longer lead times for equipment. The electronics (5G, cloud, microchips), e-commerce (omnichannel), healthcare, e-mobility and consumer goods sectors developed positively in particular. The product strategy of global contract logistics is fully aligned with this positive sector development, which is reflected in a continuous improvement in profitability and final results.
Despite high investments, there was a shortage of available storage space worldwide. The lack of commercial storage and industrial space is due mainly to Covid-19-related growth in e-commerce and demand from other sectors due to increased inventory stocks. Investments in new storage facilities could continue to decline due to sharply rising prices for construction materials, increasingly scarce construction space and in connection with rising labor costs as well as costs of financing.
DB Schenker was able to increase its market share slightly, especially in the regions of America, the Middle East and Africa.
