UPS (UPS) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool.

DATE

Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer — Carol B. Tomé
• Chief Financial Officer — Brian Dykes
• Investor Relations Officer — PJ Guido

TAKEAWAYS

• Consolidated revenue -- $21.2 billion, with consolidated operating profit of $1.3 billion and operating margin of 6.2%.
• U.S. domestic average daily volume -- Down 8%, with nearly two-thirds of the decline attributed to Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) volume reduction and removal of lower-yielding e-commerce shipments.
• U.S. revenue per piece -- Up 6.5%, driven by a 340 basis point lift from base rates, 200 basis points from mix improvement, and 110 basis points from fuel price changes.
• U.S. domestic segment operating margin -- 4%, including a 250 basis point negative impact from $350 million in short-term cost pressures.
• Driver buyout program ("Driver Choice") -- Aimed to eliminate approximately 7,500 full-time driver positions with interest exceeding expectations and contributing to cost reductions.
• Amazon revenue concentration -- Reduced to 8.8% of total revenue, down from over 13% previously.
• SMB (Small & Medium Business) penetration -- Represented 34.5% of total U.S. volume, the highest in company history, with SMB daily volume up 1.6% year over year.
• B2B penetration -- Accounted for 45.2% of U.S. volume, highest first-quarter figure in six years, despite a 5.1% decrease in average daily volume.
• International revenue -- $4.5 billion, a 3.8% increase driven by premium market focus and solid revenue per piece growth.
• International operating margin -- 12.1%, with segment operating profit down by $103 million primarily due to trade policy impacts.
• Supply Chain Solutions operating profit -- $206 million, more than double the previous year, with operating margin rising to 8.1% (an increase of 450 basis points), although revenue declined by $176 million due to lower Mail Innovations and forwarding volumes but was partly offset by 19.9% growth in UPS Digital.
• First quarter cash from operations -- $2.2 billion generated.
• Network reconfiguration -- Closure of 23 buildings and reduction of operational positions by nearly 25,000 compared to last year; an additional 27 facilities set for closure in the coming months.
• 2026 full-year guidance -- Reaffirmed revenue target of $89.7 billion, operating margin of 9.6%, and flat diluted EPS outlook compared to 2025.
• Capital allocation -- Continued plan for approximately $3 billion in capital expenditures, $1.3 billion in pension contributions, $5.5 billion in expected free cash flow (inclusive of one-time buyout payments), and an anticipated $5.4 billion dividend payout, subject to board approval.

Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com

RISKS

• CEO Tomé stated that "higher fuel costs stemming from the conflict in the Middle East and U.S. consumer confidence, which is at historic lows," are external factors being closely monitored for potential demand impact.
• CFO Dykes noted incremental costs of $350 million related to "transition costs and excess operational staffing related to ground saver, and the combination of inclement weather costs and higher casualty expense. Combined, these pressures totaled about $350 million in additional expense for the first quarter," negatively impacting margin in the first quarter.
• CEO Tomé expressed caution regarding "elimination of de minimis in Europe. That happens this summer," as an area of possible disruption.

SUMMARY

United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) reported first quarter results above internal targets as its strategic cost-out program advanced and its premium segment mix grew. Company leaders indicated the largest driver reduction in the company's history is progressing, with the Driver Choice buyout oversubscribed and expected to deliver ongoing productivity improvements. International operating profit was affected by trade policy changes and Middle East airspace restrictions, but the overall segment outperformed expectations, particularly in premium markets and revenue quality. The company's healthcare revenue exceeded $3 billion for the first time, with all segments showing year-over-year growth and ongoing market share gains. Amazon's share of revenue was reduced significantly, and the company completed major network and facility consolidations, setting up for improved operating margins in the second half of the year.

• CEO Tomé highlighted, "we are firmly on track to achieve our $3 billion cost-out target for the year," reinforcing confidence in ongoing execution.
• Leadership underscored a strategic pivot away from "lower-yielding e-commerce volume," emphasizing a focus on premium segments like SMB, B2B, and healthcare.
• Digital Access Program (DAP) generated $1.2 billion in global revenue for the second consecutive quarter, supporting growth in digitally focused SMB channels.
• Segmental restructuring included scaling back leased aircraft, retiring the MD11 fleet, and transitioning a portion of Ground Saver volume to USPS for last-mile delivery.
• Leadership reaffirmed, "operating margin expansion and greater operational agility" as priorities following the completion of network reconfiguration in mid-year.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• ADV (Average Daily Volume): The mean number of packages handled per day within a segment, used to assess volume performance and operational scalability.
• Revenue per Piece (RPP): Average revenue generated per package shipped, indicating pricing, mix, and surcharge effects.
• Cost per Piece (CPP): Average cost incurred by the company per package delivered, a key productivity and efficiency metric.
• De Minimis: A value threshold below which imported goods can enter a country with minimal or no customs duties or taxes; policy changes can affect international trade flows.
• DAP (Digital Access Program): UPS program connecting digitally enabled SMBs to its platform, generating revenue through simplified access and solutions.
• MD11: A type of wide-body aircraft formerly operated by UPS, referenced in the context of fleet retirement during network streamlining.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Carol Tomé: Thank you, PJ, and good morning. Let me start by saying how incredibly proud I am of UPSers around the world. This past quarter brought significant external challenges from volatile global markets to rising fuel costs. Even so, our team stayed focused, pushed our transformation forward, and upheld the exceptional service our customers rely on. The first quarter of 2026 marked a critical transition period for our company, one in which we needed to flawlessly execute several major strategic actions, and we delivered. First, we further reduced nonnutritive Amazon volume by an average of 500,000 pieces per day and closed 23 additional buildings.

Second, under our new agreement, we shifted a portion of our Ground Saver volume back to the USPS for last mile delivery. Third, we launched a voluntary driver buyout program we called Driver Choice, through which we will reduce roughly 7,500 full-time driver positions. Interest in the program was extremely strong and ultimately exceeded our expectations. Based on these actions and more, we are firmly on track to achieve our $3 billion cost-out target for the year. Further, we began scaling back leased aircraft as we retired our MD11 fleet and took delivery of new 767s, and we continue to capitalize on trade lane ships resulting from last year's trade policy changes. It's a dynamic environment.

But even against that backdrop, our underlying business performed exceptionally well. In the first quarter, consolidated revenue reached $21.2 billion, with consolidated operating profit of $1.3 billion and an operating margin of 6.2%. Across our segments, performance was strong. In the U.S., revenue quality remained high with revenue per piece up 6.5% compared to the same period last year. Our international business delivered solid top line momentum, growing revenue by $167 million or 3.8% year-over-year and our Supply Chain Solutions businesses more than doubled operating profit versus last year. Our results were considerably better than our financial plan and targets.

But it's worthwhile calling out that while we planned for it, our first quarter performance deviated from seasonal norms due to certain cost pressures that Brian will detail. These pressures are largely behind us. We expect to return to consolidated revenue and operating profit growth and expand operating margin in the second quarter of this year. Last year, we launched the most extensive U.S. network reconfiguration in our company history by targeting a 50% reduction in the volume we deliver for Amazon by June of 2026. With roughly 2 months to go, we are comfortably in the home stretch of this initiative.

Our actions are moving us toward a more profitable U.S. small package business with the back half of 2026 expected to be the inflection point. With that as context, let me outline our priorities and how we intend to deliver revenue growth and margin improvement going forward. Our #1 priority is to move the right packages and the right mix of volume through our network. The market has changed, and we're adapting to it. We're overturning the old industry assumption that scale alone drives profitability. Instead, we're focused on premium segments like SMB, B2B and complex health care. Our strategy is working.

We're seeing favorable mix improvements with SMB and B2B volume, representing a larger share of total U.S. volume and premium customer wins are driving meaningful revenue per piece growth. How are we winning? We're winning through innovative and differentiated capabilities like RFID labeling at customer locations, end-to-end cold chain solutions, RoTE for same-day and big and bulky deliveries, happy returns for boxless labelless returns and much more. And that's only a part of our growth story because we're also doing a better job of retaining and growing our existing customers. In the U.S., we saw a meaningful reduction in churn through the first quarter. Our customer-first strategy focuses on what matters most and that speed, ease and reliability.

And while we're discussing capabilities, let me say like that, our digital access program. DAP gives us access to over 8 million SMBs and in the first quarter, we generated $1.2 billion in global DAP revenue, marking the second quarter in a row of delivering GAAP revenue over $1 billion. As we drive revenue growth, we'll also drive profit growth with margin improvement coming from higher productivity. We already run the industry's most efficient integrated network and with expanded automation and robotic deployments, we will make the network even more productive and adaptable. That added agility will create the strategic capacity we need to fuel premium volume growth over the long term.

Growing premium volume is not just a U.S. strategy. It's a global strategy. In International, we're speeding up our ground network in Europe to win premium commercial volume. And in Asia, we recently opened a major expansion of our Incheon airport hub in South Korea. And in Taiwan, we opened our largest and most advanced logistics center in the region. We're speeding up our services across Asia Pacific as well as to, and from Europe further enabling global supply chains, particularly in the manufacturing, high tech and health care sectors, all premium sectors. Speaking of health care, it remains a top priority growth engine for UPS.

We built a world-class, end-to-end logistics network to handle the most complex time- and temperature-sensitive health care products. And these capabilities are enabling us to win. In fact, our global health care portfolio has gained market share every year since 2021. And in the first quarter of this year, we generated our first $3 billion health care revenue quarter ever, with all 3 of our segments delivering year-over-year revenue growth. As I wrap up, we've now had 3 quarters in a row of performance exceeding our expectations.

As we look to the balance of the year, there are a few external factors that we are watching that could impact demand especially higher fuel costs stemming from the conflict in the Middle East and U.S. consumer confidence, which is at historic lows. But these external pressures won't deter us. As we reach the finish line on our Amazon glide down and complete our network reconfiguration, costs will continue to come out. Premium volume will continue to strengthen and we will return to revenue and profit growth with higher operating margins and stronger returns on invested capital. Today, we are reaffirming 2026 consolidated financial goals.

For the year, we expect to generate consolidated revenue of approximately $89.7 billion, and a consolidated operating margin of approximately 9.6%. So with that, thank you for listening. And now I'll turn the call over to Brian.

Brian Dykes: Thank you, Carol, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I'll cover our first quarter results. Then I'll give an update on the Amazon glide down and our network reconfiguration and cost-out efforts. I'll wrap up with our financial outlook for the remainder of 2026. Moving to our results. Execution across our business was strong with results coming in above our expectations. Starting with our consolidated performance. In the first quarter, revenue was $21.2 billion, and operating profit was $1.3 billion. Consolidated operating margin was 6.2% and diluted earnings per share were $1.07. Now moving to our segment performance. U.S. domestic remained focused on revenue quality while executing our Amazon glide down and network reconfiguration initiatives.

These strategic actions drove SMB average daily volume growth and strong year-over-year revenue per piece growth. For the quarter, total U.S. average daily volume was down 8% versus the first quarter of last year. Nearly 2/3 of the decline came from the glidedown of Amazon volume and our deliberate actions to remove lower-yielding e-commerce volume from our network. Total air average daily volume was down 8.9% year-over-year including the guide down of Amazon volume. Ground average daily volume was down 7.9% compared to the first quarter of 2025. Moving to customer mix. SMB average daily volume increased 1.6% year-over-year, driven by high-tech, health care and automotive customers.

In the first quarter, SMBs made up 34.5% of total U.S. volume marking the highest SMB penetration in our history. Looking at B2B, while average daily volume was down 5.1% year-over-year, it represented 45.2% of our total U.S. volume which was a 140 basis point improvement versus the first quarter of last year and was our highest first quarter B2B penetration in 6 years. Our continued focus on revenue quality and a more premium U.S. volume mix has delivered several consecutive quarters of product and customer mix improvement, reinforcing that our strategy is working. Moving to revenue. For the first quarter, U.S. domestic generated revenue of $14.1 billion.

This was a decrease of 2.3% year-over-year against an ADV decline of 8% with strong revenue per piece growth of 6.5%, largely offsetting lower volume. Breaking down the components of the 6.5% revenue per piece improvement. Base rates and package characteristics increased the revenue per piece growth rate by 340 basis points. Customer and product mix improvements increased the revenue per piece growth rate by 200 basis points. The remaining 110 basis point increase was due to changes in fuel price. Turning to cost. In the first quarter, total expense in U.S. domestic was nearly flat.

While we delivered higher productivity and continue to make progress on the Amazon glidedown, those benefits were partially offset by short-term cost pressures in the first quarter. As Carol mentioned, these included temporary third-party lease expense to cover capacity constraints from retiring our fleet of MD11 aircraft, transition costs and excess operational staffing related to ground saver, and the combination of inclement weather costs and higher casualty expense. Combined, these pressures totaled about $350 million in additional expense for the first quarter. Cost per piece in the first quarter increased 9.5% year-over-year. The U.S. Domestic segment delivered $565 million in operating profit and operating margin was 4%, including a 250 basis point negative impact from the short-term cost pressures.

These cost pressures are largely behind us as we move into the final months of the execution of our Amazon glidedown and network reconfiguration initiatives. Moving to our International segment. In the first quarter, revenue grew across all regions, driven by strong revenue quality and our focus on premium markets. Plus, we saw signs of recovery in trade length shifts stemming from the 2025 trade policy changes. Additionally, with the onset of the conflict in the Middle East, we adjusted our network and continue to serve our global customers throughout the first quarter. In the first quarter, total international average daily volume declined 6%.

International domestic ADV decreased 6.6% compared to last year, led by a decline in Europe, that was partially offset by growth in Canada. Like in the U.S., we saw improvement in customer mix with SMB penetration reaching over 60%. On the export side, average daily volume in the first quarter decreased 5.5% year-over-year led by declines on U.S. destination lanes resulting from the pull forward of purchases in the first quarter of last year, spurred by changes in trade policy. U.S. imports in total were down 16.4% year-over-year led by a 22.5% ADV decline from Europe to the U.S. The China to the U.S. Lane, which is our most profitable trade lane was lower by 18.3% compared to last year.

But as we have said before, with changes in trade policies, we see that trade doesn't stop, it moves somewhere else, and we continue to see volume growth in other parts of the world. Turning to revenue. In the first quarter, International generated revenue of $4.5 billion, up 3.8% from last year, driven by strong revenue per piece growth Operating profit in the International segment was $551 million, down $103 million year-over-year, primarily due to trade policy changes. International operating margin in the first quarter was 12.1%. Looking at Supply Chain Solutions. Supply Chain Solutions made strong progress during the first quarter, highlighted by the doubling of operating profit year-over-year, driven by improvements across business units.

In the first quarter, revenue was $2.5 billion, lower than last year by $176 million. Logistics revenue was down year-over-year, driven by lower revenue in Mail Innovations. This was partially offset by revenue growth in Healthcare Logistics, reflecting market conditions, air and ocean forwarding revenue was down year-over-year. And UPS Digital, which includes Roadie and Happy Returns, delivered another consecutive quarter of revenue growth, with revenue up 19.9% compared to the first quarter of 2025. In the first quarter, Supply Chain Solutions generated operating profit of $206 million, an increase of $108 million year-over-year. Operating margin was 8.1%, up 450 basis points compared to last year. Lastly, looking at cash.

In the first quarter, we generated $2.2 billion in cash from operations. Now let me provide an update on our Amazon glidedown, cost out and network reconfiguration efforts from the first quarter. Starting with variable cost. Total operational hours paced down with volume in the first quarter, and we're on track to reach our 2026 reduction target of 25 million hours versus last year. Looking at semi variable costs. By the end of the quarter, we reduced operational positions by nearly 25,000 compared to the first quarter of last year.

In addition, the Driver Choice program that we initiated during the quarter is expected to reduce full-time driver positions by approximately 7,500 over time, putting us firmly on target to reach our reduction goal of 30,000 operational positions this year. And moving to our fixed cost bucket, we completed the closure of 23 buildings during the first quarter. We are planning to close an additional 27 buildings this year, most of which will be closed in the second quarter. We are pleased with the progress that we are making on our Amazon glidedown and network reconfiguration initiatives and are on track to achieve our targeted $3 billion in savings in 2026. Moving to our 2026 financial outlook.

While the macroeconomic environment is different now compared to our expectations at the beginning of the year, we have been quick to adjust to the changing conditions and we're continuing to closely monitor the broader impacts across the global economy. As Carol stated, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 consolidated financial target. We are on track to generate revenue of approximately $89.7 billion with an operating margin of approximately 9.6% and diluted earnings per share expected to be about flat to 2025. The conflict in the Middle East in March drove an immediate spike in fuel costs. Our fuel surcharges are linked to published fuel benchmarks and adjust with fuel prices on a weekly basis.

And we expect these surcharges to provide coverage as fuel prices continue to fluctuate. Now let me add color on the segment. Looking at U.S. domestic, full year 2026 revenue is still expected to be approximately flat year-over-year. We expect ADV to be down mid-single digits year-over-year due to our actions with Amazon which will be offset by a strong revenue per piece growth rate in the mid-single digits. Full year operating margin is still expected to be flat to 2025. Looking at the second quarter of this year compared to the first quarter, the USPS transition has been completed. The Amazon glidedown and network reconfiguration will wrap up by the end of June.

We are leasing fewer replacement aircraft to 767 deliveries continue, and premium volume is expected to further improve mix. As a result, we expect revenue to be up low single digits and operating margin to be between 7.5% and 8.5%. Moving to the International segment and starting with the full year. We still anticipate revenue growth in the low single digits year-over-year, driven by a solid increase in revenue per piece. Operating margin in the International segment is expected to be in the mid-teens. Looking specifically at International in the second quarter, we will lap tough comparisons from changes in trade policy, benefit from normal seasonal uplift and continue to realize savings from our air network cost actions.

As a result, we expect low single-digit revenue growth and an operating margin between 13% and 14%. And in Supply Chain Solutions for the full year 2026, we still expect revenue to be up high single digits, which includes revenue from our Andlauer acquisition and operating margin in SCS is expected to be in the low double digits. Looking at the second quarter, we expect momentum from the first quarter to continue, and we expect revenue in SES to be up low single digits year-over-year and operating margin between 9.5% and 10.5%. Now let's turn to our expectations for cash and the balance sheet.

Capital expenditures are still expected to be about $3 billion, and we plan to make our annual pension contribution of $1.3 billion. We expect free cash flow to be approximately $5.5 billion, including onetime payments for the Driver Choice program. Lastly, we are still planning to pay out around $5.4 billion in dividends in 2026, subject to Board approval. As we near completion of our Amazon glidedown and network reconfiguration initiative, we will enter the second half of this year with a more agile and more automated network. Our focus is on premium volume and revenue quality and will grow in the best parts of the market.

Taken together, these actions set us up for operating margin expansion and greater operational agility. With that, operator, please open the lines for questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Tom Wadewitz from UBS.

Thomas Wadewitz: So I wanted to ask you a question about the kind of ramp from 1Q to 2Q. You were a bit -- I think in early March, you pointed to kind of 4% to 5% 1Q margin. You were at the lower end of that. I know you identified, I think, kind of $350 million total transitional costs. How do you think about that like the key pieces of that ramp and just visibility to that versus what you might have had in terms of visibility to that ramp a month ago or 2 months ago?

So I don't know if that kind of a little lower 1Q margin reduces visibility or if you say, hey, that was just kind of transitional. And then how does fuel factor into the kind of 2Q versus 1Q? Is there some tailwind that you consider? Or is that something you don't factor in but could give you a little support? So really just to kind of how do we think about the key levers, 2Q versus 1Q.

Brian Dykes: Sure. Thanks for the question. So yes, let me make a couple of points on the impacts on the first quarter. So first, if you think inside the quarter, right, relative to the 4% margin, we incurred incremental weather and casualty costs that was more than what we had initially expected when we were setting the guide in and where we were in March. That was about 70 basis points, which gets us kind of towards the higher end of that -- of the range that we laid out. Second, when you go from first quarter to second quarter, there's really 2 components, right? We have normal seasonal uplift, right, from first quarter to second quarter.

The other part is if you think about that weather and casualty, those are behind us, right? The aircraft leases, as Carol and I have both mentioned, we continue to take deliveries. So the incremental costs associated with those is coming down. And we've now completed the ground saver outsourcing. So a lot of that transitional costs that we incurred in the first quarter now comes out. And so that helps you bridge from first quarter to second quarter. On fuel, look, we reaffirmed our guide. We are not updating for fuel at this point.

Fuel didn't have a material impact in the first quarter because really the ramp in prices happened late in the quarter and as we've gone into April. Look, fuel -- we manage fuel through fuel surcharges. So even though we have a large airline, we're very different than passenger airlines and our industry operates very differently. And so our fuel surcharge indexes protect us from impact to profit, right? Now there could be revenue impact to that, but there will also be offsetting expense. What we don't know is how long the high prices could persist. And then what happens, which relative to oil prices and commodity prices around the world where we actually procure.

So we feel confident in the profit number based on the protection our indexes will provide and our surcharges, but it's not appropriate for us to update until we have further clarity on how long this will last.

Carol Tomé: It's just too early in terms of the conflict. Clearly, there's a benefit right now to the top line, not so much on the bottom line because we're just covering our costs. But it's too early in the conflict to predict fuel might mean for the rest of the year. So we're going to stay close to it, and we're going to manage through it as carefully as we can, but we didn't want to lift because it's just too early.

Operator: Our next question is coming from Scott Group from Wolfe Research.

Scott Group: So just following up there, I get we don't know where fuel is going to end up, but in a higher fuel price environment where you guys are also raising the surcharge schedules, like should we assume that there is some sort of profit benefit from the higher fuel environment? And then maybe just, Carol, let's just take a step back, like big picture, like we're going to end up in the 7% and 8% range on U.S. margin this year. Help us think about where that can go over the next couple of years? We get through the Amazon glidedown, maybe we start to see a little bit of wage inflation start to kick in again next year.

But where do you think margins can start to go over the next couple of years here?

Brian Dykes: Sure. So let me talk quickly about the fuel. So Scott, as I mentioned before, look, the prices have spiked very quickly. It will have a revenue impact, but we also have associated costs. So we don't see this as a windfall in the near term. And again, depending on how long it lasts, it could have a revenue impact, but there could ultimately be a demand impact. So again, as Carol said, it's just too early to speculate on what the ultimate implications of could be. We'll monitor it. And as we know more, we'll update

Carol Tomé: And Scott, we brought you all through a lot over the past almost 18 months, but we did it deliberately because it frees us to focus in on the market that we want to serve and serve them better than anybody else. And that includes SMB and B2B and health care. And with those premium markets, and the productivity that Nando and his team are driving in our business, there's an opportunity for continued margin expansion. This is the year of inflection. So the back half of the year will look considerably different than the first half of the year.

And as we exit this year, we have an opportunity to grow U.S. margins in a meaningful way with that between RPP and CPP. So at the end of the year, we'll give you a sense of what we think '27 will look like, but it's going to be much better than '26 based on what we're seeing in the underlying health of the business. We're winning in the right markets. Our churn is declining. And all of this leads to stickiness with the customers that we want to serve with the right revenue quality coupled, with great productivity. Our hub productivity is the best has been in 20 years, just to put a point on it.

We now have automated 67.5 points our teams almost on our way to 68%. And we know that cost per piece on an automated building is 28% lower than the cost and piece of nonautomated buildings. So there's some really good underlying trends here in the domestic business. And then outside the United States, we can't ignore that because our business performed better than we thought in the first quarter due to the great work of Kate and her team who also are leaning into the premium segments of the market. Brian called out that we grew SMB penetration in the international business, we did. It's now 62%.

We also grew our B2B penetration outside the United States, now about 71%. So Kate and team are going to continue to lean into the premium part of our international small package business and we won't forget health care ever, because health care is such an important part of our growth engine it is in every segment of our business with double-digit operating margins, and we're going to continue to lean into that space in a meaningful way. And with just one more comment on that, just put a pin on it with just the changes that we're seeing in pharmaceutical companies with GLP-1 drugs and how they're going direct to consumer rather than through distributors.

That's an opportunity for us and proud to say that we lead the market in that area.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Wetherbee from Wells Fargo.

Christian Wetherbee: Maybe just a quick clarification question and maybe bigger picture, I guess, for the driver buyout in the second quarter, can you just give a sense of what the impact will be if there will be a benefit in 2Q from that? And then maybe zooming out a little bit. We're about a quarter away or maybe a couple of months away from the end of the Amazon glidedown, there still is a significant amount of revenue associated with that customer. And I think there's been some changes, and they're always doing various things in the market. But I guess the question is, Carol, is this sort of where you want the portfolio?

Do you think there is incremental work that needs to be done around that? How defensible it is? Just sort of give us a sense of how you think about that customer exposure.

Carol Tomé: Yes. On the driver buyout, the drivers are leaving in April. So there will absolutely be a benefit in the second quarter. I don't know, Brian, if you want to dimensionalize that.

Brian Dykes: Well, and that's part of the step-up that we've got, right? So we had a roughly $150 million in transitional costs in the first quarter that starts to go away as we go to the second quarter, and it helps us with the margin improvement that we see in the second quarter and then going into the second half.

Carol Tomé: And as it relates to the Amazon question, at the end of the first quarter, Amazon made up 8.8% of our total revenue. That's down from, it was north of 13%, not very long ago. So really pleased with how we've partnered with Amazon on this glidedown. We hold that company in very high regard. And for the volume that we have remaining with Amazon, I think we're going to get to where we want to be. We are -- we have a great return network. And as you know, returns are the nemesis of anybody who's in the e-commerce. In fact, 19% of all e-commerce sales are returned. And so with our great reverse net work.

And the capabilities that we have for Box's labelless returns, that relationship with Amazon is just going to continue to grow. And it's not just returns, that certainly is a key part of it. So give a shout out to the team at Amazon for working with us. We're pleased where we are, and we want to continue our relationship in the nutritive way that is turning out to be.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Jonathan Chappell from Evercore ISI.

Jonathan Chappell: Brian, I want to take Tom's question and flip it to international. As Carol noted, you did much better there. You're looking for flat revenue, you did up almost 4%. Your margin was over 12%, the range was 10% to 11%, yet the 2Q guide is exactly the same. Was there something temporary in 1Q that enabled you to beat by so much relative to what you were expecting in the first week of March? And why wouldn't that upside across both margin and revenue be extrapolated going forward?

Brian Dykes: And yes, we were very pleased with the performance in international. I think when you -- there's a couple of things that drove it in the first quarter. As Carol mentioned, leaning into premium segments in Europe are helping us to drive revenue quality as well as, I would say that we mentioned the decline in the China to U.S. trade lane while it's down, it's not as bad as what it has been, right? And so I would say things were not as bad as what we expected or what they could have been. And so we are starting to see some recovery in certain trade lanes.

As we roll into the second quarter, remember, we're still lapping the -- May will be the lap of the liberation Day and the China de minimis elimination which will provide some improvement in step up. And then we'll have another lap in September of the full de minimis elimination. So we do expect the improvement to persist. The other thing that's going on in international is we are seeing some incremental costs associated with the network reconfiguration around the Middle East conflict. It has impacted flight and block hours and some of the lanes. While it's not a large demand area or delivery area, it has impacted some of the network flows that we're managing through.

Carol Tomé: Thanks for making that point. I think that's an important point. If you look at our exposure in the Middle East, it's pretty small. Job #1 was to keep our people safe. We have about 2,000 people there, and they're safe, I'm happy to say. In the first quarter, the export and import revenue was about $130 million. So it's not a lot of exposure, but we can't fly over the aerospace because we can't fly over the aerospace that is putting cost into the network. We want to continue to serve our customers. The other thing we're taking a cautious outlook on is just the elimination of de minimis in Europe. That happens this summer.

We don't know if it will be disruptive or not, but it's a change and we saw the disruption that happened last year with the elimination of the minutes here in the United States. So we're just watching that. But I couldn't be more happy about actually the work that our international team is doing, to drive really great revenue quality and growth.

Operator: Your next question is coming from David Vernon from Bernstein.

David Vernon: So I'd like to kind of maybe understand the pace of cost takeout. Has there been any shift in timing caused by discussions you have the unions around the driver buyout? And then Brian, when you're thinking about the overall message you're trying to give us with guidance here, it does seem like first quarter domestic, if you give you credit for the 350 and international is performing really, really well, but we're not changing the full year. Like is this just, well, while we put the numbers out in the first quarter, and we're going to see how the year plays out, and we'll update it later? Or is something getting worse in the business that we can't see?

Because I think the market's kind of hearing a beat and to raise as a beat and maybe core worse for the last half of the year. I'm just wondering if you could help me kind of understand what the messaging is here.

Carol Tomé: Well, maybe I'll start and then Brian, you can come in. It is early in the year to raise. The underlying business is better than we thought. If I look at the results in April, we're going to exceed the plan that we put in place. If I look at the results outside the United States, have moved from red and certain trade lanes to orange. So everything is moving in the right direction. But David, it's early in the year. And there is a war in the Middle East. High gasoline prices could potentially impact demand towards the end of the year. We don't know.

So instead, we want to stay with our plans, but I couldn't be more pleased with how our company is performing. There's nothing on the underlying trend that should be concerning here. It's just too early in the year to raise.

Brian Dykes: Yes. And David, I would just add to that. On the guide, Carol is absolutely right. We feel very good about the health of the underlying business. If you remember, we said SMB grew in the first quarter. We expect that to continue. We'll lap some of the actions that we took on the enterprise customers as we go through the second quarter and see growth back to Amazon in volume in the back half. We expect revenue at Amazon to grow every quarter this year. So health of the underlying business is strong. Rev per piece is strong, base pricing is strong. So we feel really good about that. And Carol hit on international.

On the pace of cost takeout, nothing's changed, right? I think if you look at the actions that we took in the first quarter, they actually set us up to do exactly what we said we were going to do, right? We transitioned ground favor. We executed on the DCP. As Carol said, nearly 80% of those positions will be eliminated by the end of this month. We are replacing the MD11 capacity as we take delivery of the 767. So we're moving in the right direction. We're getting things behind us that are going to help us drive the margin inflection as we go into the second half.

Carol Tomé: Brian, isn't the shape of the cost out much like the shape of the cost out last year.

Brian Dykes: It is very much so, right? And so you'll continue to see that improvement as we go through the course of the year.

Carol Tomé: It accelerates as we had to do the back.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Stephanie Moore from Jefferies.

Stephanie Benjamin Moore: Great. I wanted to maybe ask a clarification on the driver bio program. It sounds like it ended up coming in or the involvement is either in line or slightly better than what you expected, but admittedly, there are a lot of articles out there in the news that are kind of discussing maybe a little bit less willingness to move forward with that program on the driver side. So it would be helpful if you can maybe separate fact from fiction, what you're seeing, help line expectations? Any clarification there would be helpful.

Carol Tomé: Yes. Happy to. So when we laid out our internal plans for the driver buyout, we wanted to land on 7,500 physicians. Our program was oversubscribed. So perhaps that's the basis for some of the articles. So we had more drivers applying than we could accept. We accepted the 7500, we couldn't be more happy.

Brian Dykes: And Stephanie, I would say that aligns with the pace of the cost takeout that we had laid out at the beginning of the year. we feel very comfortable that we're going to get to the $3 billion as we laid out and the actions that I articulated earlier are how we're going to get there.

Carol Tomé: And you might say, well, why didn't you take more in? Well, we have to run the business. This is what we needed to run our business.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Jordan Alliger from Goldman Sachs.

Jordan Alliger: I wanted to come back to international. Obviously, with all the trade lane ships and everything that's gone on, margins are below what had historically been the long-term trends. So I'm just sort of wondering, over time, can we push back into a high teens margin level what will it take to get that margin uplift again coming from international?

Carol Tomé: Well, if you look at the international business, there's been a lot of movement in the trade lines. And as we've talked to you, our China U.S. trade lane is our most profitable trade lane. We saw the margin in our APAC region down 500 basis points year-on-year. This is a moment in time because of the impact of the tariffs. This is going to normalize over time. And in fact, with the elimination of the EBA tariff and going back now to the 122 tariffs of 10%, we're actually seeing trade lanes move from red to orange yellow in the subpieces grain. So things are starting to normalize. So that means the margin will get back up.

Operator: Your next question comes from Bruce Chan from Stifel.

J. Bruce Chan: Maybe just wanted to zoom out here and get some high-level thoughts on demand and maybe what's assumed in your outlook here. We've heard from a few companies this quarter that maybe got some early indications of industrial demand recovery. Again, maybe you can just give us some high-level macro thoughts and talk about what you're seeing in terms of maybe any pockets of emerging strength by segment or geography or end market or whatever.

Brian Dykes: Sure. So as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, look, we see the puts and takes on the macros, right? GDP ticked down a little bit. Industrial production ticked up a little bit. But I think you're right, we do see pockets of strength in the places where really leading in, right? So we mentioned automotive, high tech, health care, industrial, where we are seeing our ability to win more and take share. We don't expect -- we haven't seen a material shift in what we would expect for the addressable market growth in small package in the U.S. to low single digits, but we are winning where it matters to us.

As Carol mentioned, health care, in particular, we grew across all segments of the business, and we continue to see strong uptake in there, which is higher than the average market growth rate. On the international side, Carol hit on it, right? We're I would say that while we're still down on certain trade lanes, they are moving in the right direction, right? And in particular, we are seeing international to international origin destinations growing, right? So trade is moving in places that don't touch the U.S., and it's improving in places that do touch the U.S. So overall, I would say not a robust improvement but incremental progress.

Carol Tomé: If you look at China, Rest of the world, it's up 14% year-on-year. It's a small portion of our business, but that's an encouraging sign to see that growth rate.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Ari Rosa from Citigroup.

Ariel Rosa: Carol, you mentioned the CPP versus RPP spread -- we've seen RPP grow pretty nicely, but we've also seen CPP obviously take a pretty big step up. I'm wondering how you think about that normalizing? And when we get to a more normal level, what that can look like. Specifically, in terms of what's driving up CPP, how much of that are fixed costs that start to go away? And then on how much is the pricing environment helping you versus the mix benefit that you might be realizing from the shift towards higher-yielding packages?

Carol Tomé: Well, I'll let Brian take that.

Brian Dykes: Sure and I'll start. And so thanks. So look, I think getting back to this, call it, 50 to 100 basis point spread is healthy, right, for our business. And we'll be back there by the end of this year, right, is the way the year kind of sits out. When you think about what's going to drive that, one, we're taking actions to bring the network capacity in the U.S. back in line with the volume level that's DCP, that's Amazon building consolidation. That's all the things that we've outlined. And those, for the most part, now are done or are in progress.

So we feel really comfortable with our ability to get the capacity lined up in the back half. On the revenue side, look, we talked about this $250 to $350 kind of range of base pricing improvement. And we've been in that range, right? And as we've been very clear about what's mix versus fuel versus base pricing. And I think we'll continue to get that kind of base pricing increase. You do that, right, through making sure that you're selling into the segments of the market that where we can deliver value to our customers, right? SMB, B2B, health care, and that's where we're really leaning in and that's where we're winning.

So I think we do have the ability to get there in the near term and then manage that and grow in a more a more accretive manner more efficient network as we go into the fourth quarter of this year in '27.

Carol Tomé: And I know Brian called this out in his prepared remarks, but in the U.S., the RPP growth was driven by base rate improvement, 340 basis points. Mix improvement, 200 basis points and then about 110 basis points from fuel. And that mix improvement is coming through this leaning into the premium segment, leaning into SMBs and leaning away from, well, volume that was related to China e-commerce retailers, mostly ground favor. So that's been moved out of the network. We've offered that volume to the market so that we can focus on the premium side.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Ken Hoexter from Bank of America.

Ken Hoexter: Carol, I guess your competitor noted it posted the strongest quarter of profitable U.S. share gain in 20 years. You noted your churn is declining. You're seeing favorable mix improvements here, especially on the target audience B2B. It sounded like your -- or Brian's answer to Bruce earlier that there's not that underlying strength that you're kind of really seeing kind of runaway here. I just want to understand, given what we're seeing in truck market on some of the rail volumes, that underlying -- is there just a delay typically in what you see economically? Are you seeing some of that pop up?

I just want to understand maybe that mix or is it just what you're chasing is just different than the market now?

Carol Tomé: Well, let's talk about market share for a moment. If we ignore the volume that we have made available to the market, and that includes Amazon and volume from e-commerce, Chinese retailers. If we ignore that volume, we actually gained 1.2% market share growth. So we have made volume available to the market that has gone to other carriers, including our largest competitor. It has. Because we deliberately moved -- made that volume available. So if I look at the underlying business, I'm really pleased with the share that we're getting. In terms of trends...

Brian Dykes: Yes. And Ken, I think you're right. There is a slight delay in how things move through the supply chain, through the ports, through the TLs, the LTLs and the rails into us. We -- and like I said, I would say we see incremental momentum in our B2B business in the industrial business, part of that through capabilities, right, that we've been investing in. But part of it is through momentum. I would just say it has not been runway growth that would cause us to fundamentally change our market growth assumption for the year yet.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Richa Harden from Deutsche Bank.

Richa Talwar: It's Richa here. So yes, trying to get a longer -- a sense of longer-term cost per package potential. Obviously, CPP pressure has been high recently influenced by your Amazon glidedown. But as you progress through this year and into next year, how could your CPP trajectory look in light of maybe more cost efficiency from automation things to offset the step-up that we're going to see in your contract, I believe, next year, if that's right? Trying to just add more to Carol, your point that 2027 should look a lot better than 2026. I'm just trying to understand like puts and takes on the CPP line.

And then in the spirit of longer-term potential, I just want to clarify one thing. Carol, I think you said you think margins will be back to high teens in international? Are you assuming U.S.-China business that wasn't structurally impaired from de minimis and it should return to where it was prior in terms of overall volume? Or how do you get back to high teens. I'm just trying to understand.

Carol Tomé: Well, clearly, as the trade lanes normalize and we see more volume flowing through the China U.S. trade lane, that will help our margin. But it's not just that. We are investing in the premium opportunities where we're underpenetrated in Europe. Moving away from e-commerce, which is low margin into premium opportunities, and that's going to significantly improve our domestic margins in Europe. So it's a combination of actions that we are driving to drive back to mid to high teens in our international business. And then on the CPP potential. Brian, I'll let you take that.

Brian Dykes: Sure. And I think even if you look into the back half of this year, our CPP gets down into the low single digits, right? And that's -- as Carol said, we have -- while we've been going through the network reconfiguration, we have been eliminating some of the less productive older buildings that require more maintenance. We have been heavily investing in automation that drives a much more efficient and agile network that should allow us to keep CCP in the low single digits. And then have that 50 to 100 basis point spread because we've got a more healthy customer mix and grow from there. That's a healthy business that can drive growth and profit improvement for us.

Carol Tomé: And with our new outsourced relationship with the USPS, we'll be able to drive density upon the delivery, and that's a real way to lower the cost per piece is to improve the density per delivery. And as you know, we've just kind of completed the ramp up. So now we're going to start to see some benefits from that move.

Richa Talwar: Okay. Just in the offset from the contract with the changes and how is that going to inflow nth back half of '27?

Carol Tomé: Well, I'll tell you one thing. We have a lot fewer employers in our company than we had when we started this work. So that helps on the CPP management next year.

Operator: Your next question is coming from Brian Osenbeck from JPMorgan.

Brian Ossenbeck: Maybe just 2 sort of quick follow-ups. Just on mix shift, I understand the increasing percentage of mix for SMB and B2B, but it looks like B2B volume in absolute was down 5%. I don't know if you can provide some color as to why that occurred and what might be moving forward here? And then, Carol, just on the transition for the USPS, it sounds like it's done, maybe not everything went back to them in terms of final mile delivery. Can you give a little bit more color on that and also just how you expect to manage their own fuel surcharge, which was kind of a big headline. They never really had one in the past.

So I don't know if that's something you can pass through as well with that program.

Carol Tomé: So in the first quarter, we tendered about 977,000 ADV to the USPS, which was about 44% of our ground paper product. It was a wrap because we had to get -- work through dual labeling and some work that we had to do to transition. So it was a ramp up, really pleased with how we exited. And as we look to the second quarter, we'll be tendering around $1.5 million, something like that. So that's moving the way we thought it would. In terms of interesting surcharge that they put in, which appears to be a temporary surcharge, not entirely sure.

It's not appropriate for us to talk about how we manage pricing by customer, but I will say the Pulse system tends to set the floor for the economy product, which is actually pretty good for the whole industry if they're raising prices.

Brian Dykes: That's right. And Brian, on your question around B2B, the B2B volume decline was really driven by some of the intentional actions that we took last year. And part of it is Amazon, part of the Amazon volume that we're exiting through AFN is delivered to commercial addresses. There's other stuff that was returns for Chinese e-commerce and some other things that we're moving through. We'll cycle through that as we go through the second quarter. And again, we see strength in the underlying B2B business where we're winning on capability.

Carol Tomé: And that may sound a little curious that a retailer would be a B2B, but it's the way that we think about our customer segmentation. If it's a return to store or return to a physical building, we're going to do that as a business transaction, even though the pay, if you will, the customer who's paying us might be a retailer.

PJ Guido: Matthew, we have time for one more question.

Operator: Our final question comes from the line of Ravi Shanker from Morgan Stanley.

Ravi Shanker: Carol, the reports that you and your peer have applied for tariff refunds through the portal. Can you just tell us your understanding of how that will work kind of when that might come through? And also, what happens next? Do you get to keep the tariffs? Or do you have to pass them through to the end customers?

Carol Tomé: Well, thanks for the question, Ravi. This is a complicated matter for sure. I'm going to zoom out just to talk about the EPA tariffs in total. So last year, since the tariffs have been initiated, the Customs Border Protection processed $53 million IPA-related entries and collected $166 billion in tariffs. For us, we processed $16 million EPA-related entries and remitted over $5 billion to the US. Treasury. Ravi, we are just a pass-through. We collect and we remit to the government. So now that the tariffs have been deemed refundable, we are working with the Customs Border Protection to apply for those refunds. Our approach is to work with the U.S. government and not to sue the U.S. government.

We have applied for the refunds pursuant to the guidelines from the Customs Border Protection. Interestingly, they are not going first in, first out, but actually last in. So it's for the tariffs that have happened this year. For us, it means applying for tariffs for 2.5 million entries, a little under $500 million. We are making those applications started on April 20. We are making those applications today. We think it's going to take some time before the treasury remits money to us. But as soon as we get that money, we're going to remit it right back to our customer.

Brian Dykes: Yes, that's a really important point. And I think, as Carol mentioned, we are purely a pass-through, so we don't expect that this will have an impact on our financial statements.

Operator: Thank you. I will now turn the floor over to your host, Mr. PJ Guido.

PJ Guido: Thank you, Matthew. This concludes our call. Thank you for joining, and have a good day.

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends United Parcel Service. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.