BONN (dpa-AFX) - The situation in Deutsche Post's freight forwarding business has eased recently after two turbulent years. However, it is still difficult for the management to estimate how transport volumes, as well as prices for the transport of goods (freight rate) and thus also the revenue of the division will develop. "We now have low demand, and that is meeting with an oversupply of freight capacity," said Tim Scharwath, board member responsible for the Dax group's freight forwarding business, describing the situation in an interview with financial news agency dpa-AFX.

"The partly double-digit volume declines in the first quarter, which we and also our competitors have seen, they are not normal. I have not seen anything like this in the last 30 years. This is partly because there was disproportionate consumption during the Corona pandemic, but supply chains were also disrupted in the meantime, for example due to the lockdown in China."

How freight rates will evolve depends on three things, he said. "On the volumes being shipped, the capacity available, and the cost. When freight rates fluctuate, carriers like us can make money on it, depending, of course, on how you can make it work in the market. We buy cargo space at price "x" and sell it at price "y" - but we also bear the risk of fluctuating demand in the process." In the second quarter, he said, the level of freight rates is expected to continue to ease a bit.

"But there will still be enough movement in it that we can get a good margin out of it." Still open, he said, is how revenue will develop.

"What we saw in terms of sales in the first quarter, that was already a good start to the year, even though it was much less than last year. But it was much better than 2021 and much better than 2020 - and some of that was at lower volumes.

Will the second quarter now be just as good or a little better? I can't say for sure, again it depends a lot on volumes./lew/zb/mis