Uber Freight wants a bigger piece of the booming cross-border Mexico freight pie.
The company recently opened a new office in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo and has expanded its workforce in the country. Uber Freight also recently appointed Jesus Ojeda, who led customs solutions as senior vice president at Transplace before its acquisition by Uber Freight, as executive vice president of Mexico operations.
Last year, the company achieved 77% growth in U.S.-Mexico cross-border business, managing more than 2,000 daily shipments and processing over 25,000 monthly customs entries.
Ojeda sees the freight market between the U.S. and Mexico expanding even more in the future because of nearshoring — companies shifting production and manufacturing to Mexico to be closer to the U.S.
“Nearshoring, it’s a boom now in Mexico and in the U.S., and places like Laredo are hot spots for nearshoring,” Ojeda told FreightWaves in an interview. “We foresee organic growth with investments in Mexico. We have been able to attract new customers that are starting investments in Mexico and helping them to grow their company. Also our current customers and legacy customers that we have had for years – they are also expanding in Mexico, creating new plants, creating new production lines, improving their productivity and producing more goods.”
Related: US-Mexico trade hit $74B in August, Port Laredo No. 1 again
Uber Freight is a subsidiary of Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER). The company is a logistics platform that connects shippers with carriers to help streamline the supply chain. Uber Freight’s services include freight brokerage, managed transportation, carrier tools and logistics technology.
The company currently has over 1,300 employees in Mexico dedicated to its cross-border operations, with 300 team members added this year.
The new location in Nuevo Laredo will focus on Mexican customs clearance for cross-border freight.
“We continue hiring people in Nuevo Laredo to support Mexican customs,” Ojeda said. “There is a lot of paperwork that we have to get done prior to the cargo getting across the border. We have executive customer service reps sitting in Nuevo Laredo alongside customs people, trade compliance people, to process all the documents.”
Nuevo Laredo sits directly across the border from Laredo, Texas, which was the the No. 1 U.S. trade gateway in August among the nation’s 450 airports, seaports and border crossings. Trade in August totaled $30.7 billion in Laredo.
“In Laredo, Texas, we have all the material handling, all the warehousing space, the receiving customs inspection, labeling and loading,” Ojeda said. “We have two teams on both sides of the border working together, using the same systems, looking at the same information.”
In addition to Nuevo Laredo, Uber Freight has offices in the Mexican cities of Monterrey, Queretaro, Manzanillo, Saltillo, Tijuana and Mexico City. The company said it now manages 1.5 million square feet of warehouse space for cross-border logistics, making it one of the largest providers of cross-border warehousing solutions in Mexico.
Ojeda said warehouse space is in great demand all along the border, but especially in Laredo.
“When more cargo is needed to cross the border, you need more infrastructure in regards to real estate, such as warehouses in Laredo,” Ojeda said. “If we don’t have enough space, we will struggle. Most of the shippers are trying to maximize their space in their facilities in Mexico, pushing the cargo out of their facilities and putting it here in Laredo to be ready to be shipped out to the final destinations around the U.S.”
As of Sunday, the SONAR Outbound Tender Volume Index for Laredo (OTVI.LRD) was up about 3.3% year over year. The index measures national freight demand by shippers’ requests for capacity.
While the automotive industry is a big chunk of cross-border freight movements between the U.S. and Mexico, other types of manufacturing industries are growing, Ojeda said.
“I think it’s a mix. Automotive obviously is one of the biggest ones, but we see a lot of industrial manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, retail – all of them are growing. We foresee that most of the industries are growing in Mexico,” Ojeda said.
Uber Freight also recently launched an innovation center in Mexico City designed to accelerate technological advancements and optimize logistics solutions in the region.
Ojeda, who has more than 30 years of experience in logistics, said technology has helped make cross-border logistics more efficient.
“Having the technology in place to help us allows us to get the visibility we need to process the freight at the border,” Ojeda said. “We help customers to get the end-to-end visibility they need to make the right decisions at the right time.”