Trimble’s transportation revenue up 30% year-over-year

“The agriculture and transportation markets face macro headwinds, a result of commodity prices and overcapacity in trucking,” Rob Painter, president and CEO, said during a call with analysts Monday.

Trimble expects first-quarter 2024 revenue to be $905 million to $935 million and is targeting adjusted earnings of 57 cents a share to 62 cents a share. The company reported revenue of $915 million and adjusted earnings of 72 cents in the first quarter of 2023.

Full-year revenue is expected to be in the range of $3.57 billion to $3.67 billion for 2024. For 2023, the company reported full-year revenue of $3.8 billion.

Trimble CFO David Barnes said while sales remained strong across North America, the company’s business units are seeing challenging conditions in Europe.

“Revenues were down organically in Europe, reflecting challenging macroeconomic conditions across many of the markets we serve there,” Barnes said during the call.

Trimble is a Westminster, Colorado-based provider of technology solutions for trucking companies, freight brokerages and 3PLs. In addition to transportation, the company operates in industries such as buildings and infrastructure, geospatial hardware and software, and resources and utilities.

North America remained Trimble’s largest market by revenue during the fourth quarter at $493 million, an 8% y/y increase compared to 2022. The second-largest market was Europe at $265 million, a 6% y/y decline. Revenue for Asia-Pacific was $109 million in the fourth quarter, a 12% y/y increase.

Trimble officials said bookings for Transporeon achieved a record level during the fourth quarter, up over 20% versus the prior year.

Transporeon is a Germany-based logistics company that uses a cloud-based transportation management system to connect carriers, logistics service providers and shippers. Trimble acquired the company in December 2022 for $1.98 billion.

“The [Transporeon] business model is mostly a transaction model, a consumption model … and it’s still predominantly European-centric business,” Painter said. “The [European] economy hasn’t improved. So that’s a headwind to some of the transactions, and there’s less spot rates as compared to contracted rates, which is unfavorable to the business model.”

Painter said while there’s less demand for trucking capacity in Europe at the moment, Transporeon’s gross retention “is essentially 100%.” 

“The fourth quarter itself was a record for bookings in the company’s history,” Painter said. “We have new products such as autonomous procurement, which are driving that book. At a product integration level, our global teams are working together to come to one single feature for real-time visibility, bringing the maps technology we already have at Trimble into the Transporeon business.”