Aramex has recorded a 4% increase in its Q1 2023 profits despite seeing revenues decline marginally by 1% YoY to AED 1.43 billion.
The results reflects “the robustness of its revamped operating model, amid global headwinds”, said the firm in its latest financial results.
Revenues were driven by stable performance in International Express and the resilience of the Freight-Forwarding, and Logistics and Supply Chain Solutions Businesses.
Revenue continued to be impacted by currency fluctuations, inflationary pressures, and “normalisation of worldwide shipping flows”.
However, despite softening revenues, Aramex said it demonstrated resilience in volumes and improvements in margins.
“In a quarter when our industry globally continued to face headwinds from cost inflation, base rate rises, softening shipment volumes and FX fluctuations, we are proud to present a stable and resilient financial and business performance for the first three months of 2023,” said Othman Aljeda, Chief Executive Officer, Aramex.
“We continued to both drive revenue quality and benefit from our sustained investment in efficiency, and our performance vs industry means we are confident in unlocking the potential of our rebalanced business model.
“Three of our four business lines increased Gross Profit Year-on-Year, and we maintained a stable Profit Margin in our Domestic Express business, due to our relentless focus on cost control and improvements in productivity.
“We maintain our commitment to invest in optimization measures across the economic cycle, including automation of shipments sorting process which enables us to boost operational productivity; and the newly launched Enterprise Automation & Robotic Process Automation Centre of Excellence that is focused on digitalizing the overall enterprise for higher efficiency levels within the support functions as well as across our operations.
“The continued growth in the GCC economies, and the expectation that inflationary pressures around the world may peak and then decline significantly show some signs of optimism towards the end of the year. We believe the key differentiator in the months ahead will be our ability to invest in technology, along with our geographic and business line diversification which offers competitive advantage.
“We will continue to improve the efficiency of our services, enhancing customer experience, strengthening road networks, improving resourcing and making other targeted operational improvements across our four products – putting us in a strong position to capture market share and deliver long-term value for our shareholders.”
