Companies & Markets Oct 18, 2026 · 7 min read

DHL raises its 2026 profit forecast as DSV and Kuehne+Nagel prepare to report

DHL lifts its forecast to over EUR 7bn. Air freight is doing the work. On 16 October DHL Group raised its 2026 operating profit (EBIT) forecast to above EUR 7.0bn, from more than EUR 6.5bn. In our view, this is mostly an air freight story. Express EBIT rose to about EUR 1,035m from EUR 692m. DHL says about EUR 100m of that came from tight air capacity. Global Forwarding made about EUR 260m, up from EUR 195m. Expect firm air rates through peak season. Our call: DSV (21 October) and Kuehne+Nagel (22 October) will show air earnings growing faster than sea earnings, and neither will cut guidance.

DHL’s EUR 7bn forecast says air is still tight. DSV and K+N must now prove it
DHL Group raised its full-year 2026 profit forecast on Friday evening, 16 October. The group now expects reported EBIT (earnings before interest and tax, a standard measure of operating profit) to exceed EUR 7.0bn. Its previous guidance was more than EUR 6.5bn. Preliminary third-quarter group EBIT was about EUR 1,710m, up about 16% from EUR 1,477m a year earlier. Revenue was about EUR 22.6bn, up more than 12%.
Our view is simple. This is an air freight quarter. Forwarders read DHL as a bellwether, a company whose results hint at where the wider market is going. The message from this print is that air capacity stayed tight through the summer, that the big networks are making money from it, and that DHL expects that to continue into peak season. We do not read it as a sign that ocean freight has turned.
That matters this week. DSV reports on Wednesday and Kuehne+Nagel on Thursday. DHL has set the bar for both.

What DHL actually reported

These are preliminary numbers. The full Q3 report is due on 5 November. Here is the division breakdown DHL published, with last year’s third quarter in brackets:

Express: about EUR 1,035m (EUR 692m, which included EUR -54m of one-off effects)

Global Forwarding, Freight: about EUR 260m (EUR 195m, which included EUR -14m “Cost of Change”, DHL’s term for restructuring costs)

Supply Chain: about EUR 300m (EUR 278m)

eCommerce: about EUR 50m (EUR 176m, which included EUR +123m of one-offs)

Post & Parcel Germany: about EUR 150m (EUR 218m)

The guidance changes went beyond headline EBIT. The forecast for EBIT across the DHL divisions rose from more than EUR 5.9bn to more than EUR 6.4bn. Free cash flow guidance, excluding net M&A (mergers and acquisitions), went from about EUR 3.0bn to more than EUR 3.2bn. Planned capital spending on owned assets went from EUR 3.0–3.3bn to about EUR 3.6bn.
Two smaller details stand out. Q3 free cash flow was about EUR 900m, and that figure already absorbed net IEEPA outflows of about EUR 255m. IEEPA is the US emergency powers law used to impose tariffs. DHL did not explain the outflow line in the preliminary release. The other detail: DHL says it will review its mid-term target in March next year.
The market had expected less. Newsquawk’s headline put the consensus revenue estimate at EUR 21.7bn, against the EUR 22.6bn DHL delivered.

Why we call it an air story

DHL says so itself. It described the Express result as “driven by continued benefits from yield and cost measures as well as operating leverage from weight growth.” It then added: “This result had a limited support of around EUR 100 million from capacity constraints in the air freight market.”
Yield means revenue per kilo. Operating leverage means more weight is flowing through a network whose costs are mostly fixed, so each extra kilo is very profitable.
Some simple maths puts that in context. Take the EUR 54m of one-offs out of last year’s Express figure and the underlying base was about EUR 746m. Express therefore grew roughly 39% on an underlying basis. Strip out the EUR 100m that DHL credits to tight air capacity and Express still grew about 25%. That is a strong network result, and the tight market added to it.
DHL also explained why it raised the forecast. It pointed to “ongoing earnings momentum, in particular within the Express division” and to “indications of a robust seasonal peak in Q4.” In our reading, a company does not lift capital spending guidance to about EUR 3.6bn if it expects demand to fade.
Global Forwarding is the part most forwarders will compare themselves against. EBIT of about EUR 260m against EUR 195m is a rise of about 33% on the reported figures. If you add back the EUR 14m restructuring charge from last year, the underlying rise is closer to 24%. That is still good, but it is a smaller jump than Express. DHL gave no reason for the forwarding gain in the preliminary release, and it did not split air from ocean. We will need the 5 November report for that.

The air market behind the numbers

The wider data fits. In its mid-year update, reported by Air Cargo Week on 17 July, Xeneta raised its 2026 air freight outlook. It now forecasts long-term shipper rates rising 5% to 15% this year. Its earlier forecast was a fall of 5% to 10%. Xeneta expected capacity growth at the low end of a 2% to 3% range, against demand growth at the upper end of a similar range. It said about 12% of global air cargo capacity was temporarily lost when the Middle East conflict escalated on 28 February. It also reported that combined spot and contract rates were up 17% year on year in the first half.
Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, put it this way: “On 27 February I would have bet on the Netherlands winning the World Cup before I put money on air rates jumping 40 percent.”
Kuehne+Nagel’s own numbers pointed the same way in the summer. Breakbulk News reported on 23 July that K+N’s Air Logistics EBIT rose 35% to CHF 154m in the second quarter. CEO Stefan Paul said: “Air Logistics delivered an excellent quarter, increasing profit by 35%.” K+N raised its 2026 recurring EBIT guidance to CHF 1.35–1.55bn at the same time.
Sea freight was the weak spot. Transport Intelligence reported that K+N’s Sea Logistics EBIT fell 31% in the first half, and that first-half container volumes were down 1%.

What to watch from DSV and K+N this week

DSV releases its Q3 interim results on the morning of Wednesday 21 October. CEO Jens H. Lund and CFO Michael Ebbe host a call at 11:00 CEST. Kuehne+Nagel publishes its nine-month results on Thursday 22 October, with a webcast at 14:00 CEST.
For DSV, the story is still the integration of DB Schenker, the German forwarder it bought. In its H1 report on 22 July, DSV narrowed its 2026 EBIT guidance (before special items, meaning excluding one-off integration costs) to DKK 23.5–25.5bn, from DKK 23.0–25.5bn. Second-quarter EBIT before special items was DKK 6,255m, up 32.5%. Air & Sea EBIT was DKK 3,776m, up 9.4%. DSV said more than 60 countries, including Germany, had completed or started the Schenker integration, and that it expects about DKK 9bn of annual synergies (cost savings from combining the two businesses), with full impact in 2027. Lund said: “Despite this environment, we delivered earnings growth, supported by the Schenker integration”.
The Road division was the soft spot. DSV said its performance was below expectations because of operational challenges, with lower productivity and weaker volume growth in some European countries. Watch whether that has been fixed.
For K+N, the question is whether sea has stopped falling. Air already looks strong.
Investors have been picking sides. The Loadstar ran a piece on 15 October headlined “DSV, not K+N, the golden goose”. The free part says sell-side analysts have mostly cut price targets on the sector recently, apart from Expeditors and Maersk.
US results add more data this week. United Airlines reports after the close on Tuesday 20 October, so its cargo revenue line will be worth a look. Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern report before the open on Thursday 22 October, according to StockTitan’s calendar.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

If DHL is right about a robust peak, Q4 air space will stay tight and pricey. Shippers moving electronics, e-commerce or urgent spare parts out of Asia should expect peak surcharges to stick. Anyone without block space, meaning capacity reserved with an airline in advance, will be buying at spot rates.
For forwarders, the margin picture splits by mode. Air is paying. Ocean is not, at least not yet. A forwarder heavy in ocean will struggle to match DHL’s growth rates this quarter, and its customers will push back on any price rise that is not backed by real cost increases.
Watch the IEEPA line too. DHL booked about EUR 255m of net IEEPA-related outflows in Q3 free cash flow. Any forwarder that pays duties for clients is exposed to the same cash swings while US tariff policy keeps moving.

Our call

We expect DSV and Kuehne+Nagel both to report air earnings growing faster than sea earnings when they publish this Wednesday and Thursday. We expect neither to cut its full-year guidance. We also expect DHL’s full report on 5 November to confirm that Global Forwarding’s gain came mainly from air, not ocean.

Sources