Old Dominion's profit drops on weaker shipment volumes, but pricing improves

Old Dominion Freight Line

29/04/2026 12:49

April 29 (Reuters) - Trucking firm Old Dominion Freight Line ODFL.O posted a decline in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, weighed down by lower shipment volumes, while highlighting an improvement in pricing.

U.S. trucking firms have been mired in a prolonged lull as excess supply has pushed rates down, while operating costs kept climbing.

Their challenges deepened over the past year as falling volumes and weakening demand were exacerbated by uncertainties surrounding the Trump administration's evolving trade policies.

Contract trucking firm J.B. Hunt JBHT.O, however, had said earlier this month it was seeing signs of a recovery in trucking rates, led by a regulatory tightening of truckload capacity by drastically restricting commercial driver licenses to non-U.S. citizens.

Old Dominion, one of the largest less-than-truckload firms in the U.S., said its revenue per shipment in the LTL segment, a gauge for pricing, rose 5.9% during the quarter.

LTL involves carrying multiple shipments from different customers on a single truck, which are then routed through a network of service centers where they get transferred to other trucks with similar destinations.

Its LTL shipments dropped 7.9% during the quarter. The company earns nearly all of its revenue from the LTL services segment.

Old Dominion's quarterly revenue fell 2.9% to $1.33 billion. The North Carolina-based company's net income decreased to $238.3 million, or $1.14 per share, from $254.7 million, or $1.19 per share, a year earlier.

Its operating ratio, a measure of operating costs as a share of revenue, increased to 76.2%, from 75.4% a year ago.

Shares of the company were up 1.1% in premarket trading.

 (Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

 ((Nandan.Mandayam@thomsonreuters.com; Mobile: +91 9591011727;))