Mainfreight half-year: the trucks carried the result
Mainfreight’s best half in years was built on trucks, not boxes
Mainfreight’s net profit rose 66.4% to NZD 155.39m in the six months to 30 September 2026. Revenue climbed 19.8% to NZD 3.12bn. Strip out currency moves and revenue growth was 14.9%. Profit before tax was NZD 219.21m, also up 66.4%. The New Zealand-listed group released the figures on 12 November, as reported by TransportTalk.
That is a sharp turn. A year ago the same half showed net profit down 18.5% to NZD 93.38m, according to Mainfreight’s own September 2025 commentary. The full year to March 2026 then closed with net profit down 8.5% to NZD 251m, 1News reported in May.
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Our view is simple. This is a recovery led by trucks and warehouses in New Zealand, Australia and Europe. The forwarding business, air and ocean, did well. But it grew more slowly than the rest of the group, and its share of profit shrank. Anyone reading the 66% as a sign that international forwarding margins are back should look at the split first.
Where the profit came from
Mainfreight reports three business lines. Profit before tax (PBT, the profit before tax is paid) by line, per TransportTalk:
- Transport: revenue up 24.2% to NZD 1.47bn. PBT nearly doubled to NZD 116.36m.
- Warehousing: revenue up 9.4% to NZD 479.54m. PBT up 69.4% to NZD 35.03m. Its 56 warehouses were 87% full.
- Air and ocean: revenue up 19.1% to NZD 1.17bn. PBT up 28.9% to NZD 67.82m.
Those three lines add up to the group’s NZD 219.21m PBT. So we can see the mix.
A year earlier, air and ocean made NZD 52.6m of the group’s NZD 131.72m PBT, per Mainfreight’s September 2025 commentary. That was about 40% of the total. This half it is about 31%, by our arithmetic. Transport and warehousing went from roughly NZD 79m combined to about NZD 151m.
Air and ocean margins did improve, but not by much. PBT as a share of revenue moved from about 5.4% to about 5.8%, on our sums from the two sets of figures. That is real progress. It is not a step change.
Mainfreight put the gains down to customers. “This result reflects market share growth and improved trading from existing customers,” the company said, as quoted by TransportTalk. It also framed the half against a weak base: “Revenue and profit performance has been satisfactory when compared with our disappointing performance in the year prior.”
Revenue grew faster than freight
The volume figures tell a quieter story than the revenue line.
Sea freight rose 6% to 234,395 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard measure of container volume). Airfreight rose 15% to 80.2m kg. Across the group, tonnes moved rose 7% to 5.4m and consignments rose 4% to 4.8m, TransportTalk reported.
Group revenue, meanwhile, rose 19.8%. Some of that gap is currency. Some is price. A large piece is fuel. Fuel adjustments, the surcharges that pass diesel costs on to customers, added NZD 143m to transport revenue as higher costs were passed on to customers and contractors. Mainfreight said diesel cost increases have been significant, though it remains confident about fuel supply.
Fuel matters here because it is not margin. A surcharge that tracks the diesel price lifts revenue when fuel is dear and drops it when fuel is cheap. Mainfreight told investors in May that fuel cost increases began affecting results at the end of March 2026 and that it expected costs to stay high for some time, according to 1News. If diesel eases, a slice of this revenue goes with it.
Our read: the half was helped by a weak comparison, higher prices and fuel pass-through, on top of genuine share gains. Only the share gains are certain to stick.
How far air and ocean had fallen
It helps to remember where the forwarding arm started from. In the year to March 2026, air and ocean revenue fell 6% to NZD 1.98bn and underlying profit fell 10% to NZD 135m, according to 1News. Transport and warehousing both grew revenue that year. Air and ocean was the only line where revenue shrank.
In the half to September 2025, air and ocean PBT was down 20.9%, per Mainfreight’s commentary. The company still called that performance “satisfactory, despite the tariff impositions”, a reference to the US import tariffs brought in during 2025.
So the 28.9% rise this half is partly a bounce from a low point. Air and ocean revenue of NZD 1.17bn for six months is ahead of the pace of the prior year, but the margin recovery is modest. If we double this half’s PBT as a rough guide, air and ocean would land around NZD 136m for the full year, close to the NZD 135m underlying profit it made in the weak year to March 2026. The two measures are not identical, so treat that as a rough guide only. But it makes the point: forwarding at Mainfreight is back to where it was, not far beyond it.
Transport is a different picture. It nearly doubled its half-year PBT on revenue up about a quarter. That is where operating leverage, the way profit rises faster than revenue once fixed costs are covered, is showing most clearly.
The regions: Europe and the Americas turn, the US still lags
The regional figures, from TransportTalk:
- New Zealand: revenue up 20.4% to NZD 693.11m, PBT up 51.9% to NZD 66.90m. Mainfreight credits market share gains and rail access.
- Australia: revenue up 10.1% to AUD 810.82m, PBT up 26.2% to AUD 74.03m.
- Europe: revenue up 16.7% to €358.53m, PBT up 118.2% to €20.37m.
- Americas: revenue up 15.2% to USD 360.85m, PBT of USD 6.87m.
- Asia: revenue up 9.8% to USD 66.42m, PBT up 6% to USD 5.98m.
Europe is the most striking turn. In the same half last year, European PBT was €9.3m, down 31.9%, per Mainfreight’s 2025 commentary. It has more than doubled.
The Americas also look much better on paper. A year ago Mainfreight described “a disappointing performance in our USA business, driven by PBT losses in our Transport and CaroTrans divisions.” For the full year to March 2026, the Americas posted a loss before tax of USD 7.9m, 1News reported, and the company said it was “addressing unprofitable performance” at CaroTrans, its US-based ocean consolidation business. This half the region made USD 6.87m.
But the job is not done. Mainfreight says its US transport operations have yet to reach profitability, per TransportTalk. The US remains the weak point in the network.
What it means for forwarders and shippers
Three things stand out.
First, the money in this cycle sits in the domestic network. Mainfreight’s trucks and warehouses produced most of the profit increase. Its air and ocean arm grew profit roughly 1.5 times as fast as revenue, but from a thin base. For a mid-size forwarder without its own trucks and sheds, that is a warning. Pure forwarding margins are improving slowly, not jumping.
Second, shippers are paying more per shipment. Across the group, revenue rose faster than tonnes, TEU or consignments. Some of that is fuel. Some is rate. Shippers on New Zealand and Australian lanes should expect fuel surcharges to stay on invoices while diesel is high. They should push for surcharge formulas that fall as fast as they rose.
Third, Mainfreight is winning share. It says so, and the volume growth backs it. Sea volumes up 6% and air up 15% in a half when it also lifted prices means it is taking business from someone. For rival forwarders in New Zealand and Australia, and on transpacific lanes where CaroTrans works, that pressure is likely to continue. Mainfreight is still investing: a new 34,000-pallet warehouse in Christchurch is running, and a 55,000-pallet site in Auckland is due in mid-2028, TransportTalk reported.
The cash supports more of the same. Operating cash flow rose from NZD 209.6m to NZD 327.8m. Capital spending was NZD 97m, including NZD 65m on property. Net cash was NZD 54m. The board approved a fully imputed interim dividend of 85 cents a share, payable on 18 December. That is the same as the 85 cents paid a year earlier, per the 2025 commentary, which suggests the board is not yet treating this half as the new base.
What comes next
Mainfreight says trading momentum continued through October and early November in New Zealand and Australia. European and Asian trading stayed in line with the first half. “We remain cautiously optimistic that our trading performance will continue in the months ahead,” the company said, as quoted by TransportTalk. The full-year result is due on 27 May 2027.
Our prediction: when Mainfreight reports on 27 May 2027, air and ocean PBT will again grow more slowly than transport PBT for the full year to March 2027. We also expect Mainfreight to report that US transport is still loss-making at that point. The second half compares against October 2025 to March 2026, before the fuel cost rise began to bite, so fuel surcharges should keep inflating transport revenue. The weak base in the US and Europe will also keep flattering the comparison. A sharp fall in diesel is the main thing that could prove us wrong.
Sources
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