FedEx, the world's top air-express carrier, today reported sharply higher quarterly profits even as North America's tough winter trimmed gains.
The Memphis Tennessee transport group best known for overnight deliveries, said fiscal third-quarter profits were $147 million, or 49 cents a share.
In the same three months a year earlier, profits were $120 million, or 39 cents a share.
Wall Street had predicted the company would earn 50 cents a share, according to 16 analysts polled by research firm Thomson First Call. The forecasts ranged from 45 cents a share to 55 cents a share.
FedEx said that earnings for the three months ended February 28th would have been four cents a share higher without the added expenses and revenue losses caused by severe winter storms, which slowed deliveries by its trucks and jets.
Overall revenue rose, helped by the company's expanding ground deliveries business. It increased 10 per cent to $5.55 billion from $5.02 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
"Our strong momentum should continue into the fourth quarter where we again expect significant year-over-year improvement with earnings in the range of 88 cents to 95 cents per diluted share," Chief Financial Officer Mr Alan Graf Junior said.