Power 25: Stability at the top, churn at the bottom

Stability at the top

As expected, DHL Supply Chain and Global Forwarding stands alone and almost untouchable at the top of the pyramid, with nearly 2.25 million tonnes handled in 2017. Kuehne + Nagel was a distant second, but it still managed to increase its throughput by 20 percent, to 1.57 million tonnes.

“Overall, you’ve got to recognize Kuehne + Nagel for jumping up 20 percent,” Armstrong said. “They’ve done a good job of managing capacity.It goes back to the fact that they’re managing their business well. So has Expeditors, taking advantage and benefitting from the growth in e-commerce. Manufacturing is coming back, the economy has come back, plus we’ve got e-commerce on top of it.”

Panalpina, which saw air cargo volume growth of 8 percent for the year, and Expeditors, which grew its airfreight tonnage by 13 percent, both rose one spot each, to No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

UPS Supply Chain Solutions is still one of the top players in the forwarding world, but because it didn’t grow quite as fast as its neighbors on the chart, it fell two spots to No. 6.

Other than that mild shakeup, the only other change in the top 10 were Bolloré and DSV swapping places from last year, with the French firm taking the No. 9 spot, while Denmark’s DSV settled for No. 10, despite both operations reporting healthy annual tonnage growth (11 percent for DSV; 13 percent for Bolloré).

Armstrong still expects to see more growth from DSV this year, “given the fact that it’s integrated the UTi network well last year” giving it a “nice mix of international and domestic transportation management, plus the value-added warehouse management and distribution.”