Freight transportation intermediary C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) fell short of the markets revenue expectations in Q3 CY2025, with sales falling 10.9% year on year to $4.14 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $1.40 per share was 7.4% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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"The third quarter of 2025 was marked by a continued soft freight environment, with the Cass Freight Shipment Index declining year-over-year for the 12th consecutive quarter. The Cass index reading was the lowest third quarter reading since the financial crisis of 2009. And despite a fairly steady exit of trucking capacity over the past three years, truckload spot rates continue to bounce along the bottom due to low demand," said President and Chief Executive Officer, Dave Bozeman.

Company Overview

Engaging in contracts with tens of thousands of transportation companies, C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) offers freight transportation and logistics services.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Regrettably, C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s sales grew at a weak 1.3% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This fell short of our benchmarks and is a rough starting point for our analysis.

We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss cycles, industry trends, or a company capitalizing on catalysts such as a new contract win or a successful product line. C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s performance shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 5.4% annually. C.H. Robinson Worldwide isn’t alone in its struggles as the Air Freight and Logistics industry experienced a cyclical downturn, with many similar businesses observing lower sales at this time.

C.H. Robinson Worldwide also breaks out the revenue for its most important segments, North American surface transportation and Global Forwarding, which are 71.7% and 19% of revenue. Over the last two years, C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s North American surface transportation revenue (transportation brokerage) averaged 5.6% year-on-year declines. On the other hand, its Global Forwarding revenue (worldwide ocean, air, customers ) averaged 3.2% growth.

This quarter, C.H. Robinson Worldwide missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 10.9% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $4.14 billion of revenue.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 2.8% over the next 12 months. Although this projection suggests its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.

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Operating Margin

C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s operating margin has been trending up over the last 12 months and averaged 4.4% over the last five years. The company’s higher efficiency is a breath of fresh air, but its suboptimal cost structure means it still sports lousy profitability for an industrials business. This result isn’t too surprising given its low gross margin as a starting point.

Analyzing the trend in its profitability, C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s operating margin might fluctuated slightly but has generally stayed the same over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability. C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s performance was poor, but we noticed this is a broad theme as many similar Air Freight and Logistics companies saw their margins fall (along with revenue, as mentioned above) because the cycle turned in the wrong direction.

This quarter, C.H. Robinson Worldwide generated an operating margin profit margin of 5.3%, up 1.5 percentage points year on year. Since its gross margin expanded more than its operating margin, we can infer that leverage on its cost of sales was the primary driver behind the recently higher efficiency.

Earnings Per Share

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s EPS grew at a decent 8.8% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years, higher than its 1.3% annualized revenue growth. This tells us the company became more profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.

We can take a deeper look into C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s earnings quality to better understand the drivers of its performance. A five-year view shows that C.H. Robinson Worldwide has repurchased its stock, shrinking its share count by 11.5%. This tells us its EPS outperformed its revenue not because of increased operational efficiency but financial engineering, as buybacks boost per share earnings.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For C.H. Robinson Worldwide, its two-year annual EPS growth of 16.3% was higher than its five-year trend. This acceleration made it one of the faster-growing industrials companies in recent history.

In Q3, C.H. Robinson Worldwide reported adjusted EPS of $1.40, up from $1.28 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 7.4%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s full-year EPS of $5.07 to grow 6.1%.

Key Takeaways from C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s Q3 Results

Despite missing on revenue, operating margin increased nicely year-on-year and EPS beat. The stock traded up 13% to $146.39 immediately after reporting.

Is C.H. Robinson Worldwide an attractive investment opportunity at the current price? If you’re making that decision, you should consider the bigger picture of valuation, business qualities, as well as the latest earnings. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free for active Edge members.