UPS 3rd-quarter net income up 28%

UPS 3rd-quarter net income up 28%    United Parcel Service, the Atlanta-based integrator, Tuesday reported a 28-percent increase in third-quarter net income, to $739 million.
   Consolidated third-quarter revenue rose 7.2 percent to $8.31 billion. Consolidated operating profit increased 21 percent to $1.15 billion
   UPS's third-quarter package revenue rose 5.6 percent to $6.22 billion. Operating profit for U.S. package revenue increased 2 percent to $825 million, “despite continuing pressure from rising health care expenses and other benefit costs,” UPS said in a statement.
   International package revenue for the third quarter increased 15.7 percent to $1.37 billion, while operating profit in that sector rose 171 percent to $176 million.
   “That made the quarter the most profitable in the unit’s history,” UPS said, despite the normal lag over summer vacation.
   Package business to the Asia-Pacific region increased 14 percent in the third quarter. Overall, U.S. export volume for UPS rose 6.5 percent, the largest such increase since 2000.
   UPS’s non-package segment reported a 6.2 percent third-quarter increase in revenue to $723 million, while operating profit jumped 92 percent to $146 million, including the $24 million gain on the sale of UPS Aviation Technologies.
   For the nine months ending Sept. 30, net income for UPS increased 21.5 percent to $2.04 billion. UPS’s consolidated revenue increased 6.7 percent to $24.55 billion, while operating profit rose 8.4 percent to $3.17 billion over the year-earlier period.
   In the fourth quarter, “we expect to see additional improvement in our U.S. domestic segment with volume growth of 3 percent to 4 percent,” said Scott Davis, chief financial officer of UPS.