“USA, Canada, Europe and the Mediterranean are under stress because of the rising inflation, congestion in the ports and terminals, strikes and uncertainties regarding pandemic. These factors have impacted their buying power, leading to lower imports,” said Mr. Makarand Pradhan, MD, Total Transport Systems Ltd.

The geopolitical situation is also not conducive for global trade. This has affected the exports from South East Asia and the Indian sub-continent. In the last 2-3 months, the freight levels have dropped by about 10- 15 percent and if this scenario persists, we may see the freight levels dropping by further 10 - 15 percent by the end of this year, Pradhan added.

With the creation of additional capacity of ships and containers, we may see a buyer’s market in a couple of quarters.” On account of higher freight rates Total Transport witnessed 71% YoY increase in its revenue and 32% expansion of its EBITDA.

Commenting on the future growth prospects Pradhan said, if we see the current Export-Import trade, in and out of India, it is observed that it shows a decline of about 8 percent in volume terms, 

I however feel that this is a temporary phase and our exports would go up in the coming quarters. We are very optimistic about our company’s growth both in Export-Import Logistics and last mile delivery verticals. We have definite plans to ensure that our business growth is much better than the overall growth in the Export-Import Logistics and deliveries we do for E-Commerce business. Company is almost getting back to original operations of pre-COVID times and generating even better results.  

Total Transport Systems handled over 5 million shipments during and serviced more than 800 pin codes during the first quarter of FY2023. The company reported revenues of Rs 176 crore during the April-June period as against Rs 103 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal, registering a growth of nearly 71 per cent. Its profit for the period under review increased to Rs 3.65 crore as against Rs 2.42 crore, a year ago.