聯合包裹運送服務公司 (UPS) 2009 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning.

My name is Kent, and I will be your conference facilitator today.

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UPS investor relations third-quarter 2009 earnings conference call.

(Operator Instructions).

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr.

Andy Dolny, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Sir, the floor is yours.

Good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us today.

Scott Davis, our CEO, and Kurt Kuehn, our CFO, are ready to provide insight into the Company's third-quarter results and our expectations going forward.

Before I turn the program over to them, however, I want to review the Safe Harbor language.

Some of the comments we will make today are forward-looking statements that address our expectations for the future performance or results of operations of the Company.

These anticipated results are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are described in detail in our 2008 10-K and 2009 10-Q reports.

These reports are available on the UPS investor relations website or from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This conference call is being webcast and will be available on our investor relations website for a few weeks.

In his remarks, Kurt will refer to UPS's free cash flow, which is a non-GAAP financial measure.

Reconciliation is included with the news announcement this morning and is available on the investor relations website.

During the question-and-answer period, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

Doing so will enable everyone a chance to participate.

Now I will turn the program over to Scott.

Thanks, Andy, and good morning.

It is encouraging to see some economic forecasts, like GDP and IP, beginning to show consistent improvement.

However, as Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, put it recently, to say the economic recession is over is different than to say we have recovered.

While recovery has begun, it has a long way to go.

Sustained economic gains will occur only when unemployment declines meaningfully.

Turning to UPS's performance, business conditions early in the third quarter were similar to those in the second, though we did see improving trends as the quarter progressed.

UPS also benefited from effective cost management.

As a result, profitability improved over the previous quarter.

However, there are more opportunities to improve the way the business is performing.

We are evaluating additional structural, network, and go-to-market strategy changes to enhance profitability.

One of UPS's international growth strategies has been to supplement export volume with profitable domestic volume around the world.

Earlier this year, we expanded Express services into 16 additional countries, bringing the total number served to 50.

We are seeing the benefit from this strategy, with domestic volume up significantly in the quarter, aided by our recent acquisition in Turkey.

Affiliation with International Olympic Games has broadened our brand recognition in the global community.

We are honored and excited to have been selected to manage the transportation and logistical operations for the London Games in 2012.

This entails similar responsibilities to those we executed in the Olympic Games held last year in Beijing.

These opportunities enable us to showcase on a global scale the breadth of our capabilities.

We will bring the same expertise to the London Games as we did to those in Beijing.

Also in the quarter, UPS stepped up, taking a leadership position to help improve the ability of global relief organizations to respond to emergencies.

This multiyear initiative not only includes financial grants, but also puts our core competencies of transportation and logistics management to work.

Among the relief organizations that will benefit from this commitment are the Aidmatrix Foundation, the American Red Cross, CARE, UNICEF and the World Food Program.

In line with our commitment to environmental improvement, two weeks ago UPS became the first small package carrier to offer carbon offsets to customers in the United States.

Through this carbon-neutral program, shippers now have the option to offset the climate impact of their package shipments.

In addition, during the quarter, the Carbon Disclosure Project named UPS one of the top 50 companies in the world for transparency in high-quality environmental disclosure practices.

UPS is the only company in our industry to achieve this recognition.

Before I turn the program over to Kurt, I want to take a moment to thank our employees around the world for their hard work in a very difficult economic environment.

I know everyone has made a lot of sacrifices, and I truly appreciate the dedication and teamwork.

Heading into our peak season, I'm confident that we have a finely honed organization ready to execute flawlessly for our customers during this demanding time.

As I look at the global business environment, I am encouraged that recovery is underway.

UPS's worldwide presence, comprehensive portfolio of products and services, and international team of dedicated employees make a winning combination for our customers and investors alike.

Now I will pass the program to Kurt for specifics on the quarter.

Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone.

Given the business environment that existed when we began the quarter, I thought it would be difficult to find the silver lining.

Fortunately, I was mistaken.

UPS did make progress compared to the second quarter.

Volume was a little bit stronger, especially in international, and by managing the business effectively, we earned $0.55 per share, at the top of the range that we provided.

Cost initiatives continue to generate significant benefits.

Last quarter, I told you that UPS would achieve $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion in savings for the year.

Given the success we've had through the first nine months, we believe savings this year will approach $1.4 billion.

Year to date, we have saved $900 million.

Going forward, about two-thirds of these reductions are sustainable.

Let me remind you that these savings are in addition to the gains we realized by managing our variable costs as volumes declined.

Excluding fuel expense, operating costs for the quarter were down $683 million or 6.6% compared with last year.

There are 17,000 fewer employees on our worldwide payroll than a year ago.

Compensation expense, excluding benefits, for the quarter decreased by 4.5%, reflecting productivity improvements and staffing reductions.

These gains have enabled UPS to narrow the gap between the percent decline in volume versus comp and benefit expense.

We've continued to improve the efficiency of the UPS air network.

Total block hours were down 10%, allowing us to reduce fuel consumption by almost 9 million gallons.

Consolidated operating margin remained at 8.3%, same as last quarter, but down from 12.4% a year ago.

Keep in mind that last year's third quarter had a substantial benefit from the timing lag of the fuel surcharge.

In addition, you will see that our effective tax rate for the quarter was reduced to 34.8%.

We expect to see similar rates through next year.

Now let's start our review with the US package operations.

For the quarter, total domestic volume was 799 million pieces, down 3.6%.

Total volume is more indicative of year-over-year performance than average daily volume in this third quarter.

Here is why.

UPS operated on Friday, July 3, and included it as an operating day.

Volume on that day was substantially lower than average.

Counting this as an operating day resulted in an average daily volume decline of 5.1%.

The domestic package environment is actually better than this number implies.

Ground daily volume was down 6%.

However, we experienced a 2.5% increase in next-day volume.

This was the first time in almost two years we have seen growth in our next-day products.

Volume improved sequentially through the quarter, driven by both seasonality and some economic recovery.

Revenue per piece was down over 9%.

The decline was driven mostly by reduced fuel surcharges versus last year -- 29% lower on air and almost 7% lower on ground products.

Although package weights improved from the second quarter, they were still down about 7% from last year.

Changes in product mix also contributed to the decline in revenue per piece.

Despite these ongoing trends, operating margin improved to 7.5%, up 50 basis points compared to the second quarter.

The current pricing environment remains challenging, driven by the economy and more specifically by our customers' own margin pressures.

As we've told you in the past, UPS solutions help our customers take costs out of their supply chains well beyond just the cost of the transportation service provided.

It is critical that we at UPS convey the true value of these services.

Therefore, a top domestic priority today and into 2010 is improving our package yields.

Our intention is to drive yield improvements from existing customers that do not provide a fully adequate return.

Results from these efforts will become more meaningful as we progress through next year.

UPSers managed operations well despite reduced volumes.

Once again, labor hours, miles driven and domestic block hours all declined by a greater percent than the percent of volume declines, with productivity gains across the board.

We are now down 13,000 people in our US direct labor force.

The benefits from productivity improvement and reduced headcount were mitigated somewhat by a higher average hourly wage rate, healthcare inflation and increased pension expense.

Let's move now to the international segment.

Signs of recovery emerged in the third quarter.

Export volume declined only 3.2%, less than the market and less than the 4% to 6% we had anticipated three months ago.

We did see sequential improvement in export volumes across all regions of the world compared to the second quarter.

Average daily domestic volume was up 9%.

A portion of this improvement was contributed by our acquisition in Turkey, which was included in results for only two months of the quarter.

But even without the impact from this acquisition, domestic volume growth turned positive, with particular strengthening in the UK, Germany, France, Poland and Canada.

Excluding the effects of currency, revenue per piece declined 17.5%, primarily the result of reduced fuel surcharges.

Changes in product mix, and volume shifts across global trade lanes, were also contributing factors.

Despite the reduction in volume and revenue, operating margin for the segment was 12.9%, essentially flat with last quarter and with last year.

This remains by far the best in the industry.

UPS International is also doing a great job with cost management and generating positive operating leverage around the world.

International block hours dropped by almost 15% in the quarter without impacting our service footprint.

UPS remains committed to controlling costs while still making the strategic investments to enable growth when economic conditions improve.

Turning now to the supply chain and freight segment, even though revenue was down almost 20%, all business units experienced moderation in the rate of decline.

Operating margins remained at 5.5%, similar to last year.

We maintained margins through successful cost control and effective revenue management.

Our logistics group posted a solid performance.

Margins were strong due to operational efficiencies and good contract management.

We believe there is opportunity for margin expansion as we streamline our processes and rationalize our service offerings.

In forwarding, revenue and profitability improved, while operating margin was flat with last quarter.

Global airlift capacity constraints have begun to squeeze industry margins.

Taking advantage of our unique position as both an airline and a forwarder will enable us to reduce this margin pressure.

Also contending with very weak market conditions, UPS Freight reported a modest 1.7% decline in LTL shipments.

Despite the challenging operating environment, this business outperformed the market and maintained yields.

The already-weak LTL pricing environment deteriorated in the third quarter.

UPS Freight, though, opted to maintain its price discipline to the extent possible to ensure payment for value.

This decision has resulted in the loss of some shipments and tonnage.

Nevertheless, we believe this is the best strategy to preserve yields and the long-term health of the business.

LTL revenue per hundredweight declined 6% and would have been positive without the impact of the fuel surcharge.

In addition, our price index firmed slightly from the second to the third quarters.

Strong cash flow distinguishes UPS's business model.

For the first three quarters of 2009, free cash flow was $3.4 billion, flat with last year after excluding the impact of tax refunds in 2008.

This is a strong result, considering that we contributed over $500 million to pension plans in the third quarter.

For the first three quarters of this year, UPS also invested $1.2 billion in capital expenditures, spent $396 million to repurchase 7.8 million shares, paid dividends of $1.3 billion and finished with $2.8 billion in cash and marketable securities.

We anticipate that our capital expenditures for the full year will be $1.7 billion.

This is down about $250 million from the last projection we provided you and down about $0.5 billion from our initial budget of $2.2 billion.

This will put us below 4% of revenue this year, even after adding capacity in our global hub network.

Looking forward, we expect the benefit from reduced interest expense as a result of a swap program that we initiated earlier this year that converts fixed-rate debt to floating.

During the third quarter, this program reduced our effective borrowing rate by approximately 40 basis points.

We should see some additional benefits as this program continues.

Looking at fourth-quarter operations, our customers have widely differing views regarding peak season volumes this year.

Let's say we have a healthy mix of bulls and bears.

Overall, though, for the quarter, we expect to see firming in US volumes relative to the third quarter, but still below last year.

Operating margins should be similar to third-quarter results.

In our international segment, we expect our export volume and operating margins to improve modestly over the third quarter, but will still be down from last year also.

The supply chain and freight segment revenue trends should improve compared to third-quarter results, but remain below last year.

We do anticipate operating margins should be similar to what we saw in the third quarter, which is substantially above last year.

Based on our expectations for stronger sequential operating results in the fourth quarter, diluted earnings per share should be within a range of $0.58 to $0.65.

We'd now be happy to answer your questions.

(Operator Instructions).

John Langenfeld, Robert W.

Baird.

Can you first just maybe bucket the cost savings that you've been talking about and talk about which of those buckets will tend to be more permanent than others?

Yes, John, we have been taking a look at that and trying to get a good sense of really what is sustainable.

There are some things that we did certainly in the short term, given the emergency and the condition we saw in the economy, like freezing salaries, that frankly I hope we won't have to continue going forward.

So some of those things, we've done some reductions in advertising, we did freeze salaries, some quick things just to stabilize the results.

And those things presumably will go back to normal as the economy returns.

But we've also done a lot of hard work to realign the network and are harvesting the benefits of that that will stay.

We have continued to shrink our infrastructure of operating units, both in the US and across the globe, to reduce some of our SG&A.

As you know, we have opened up the first phase of our Worldport hub expansion.

That has allowed us to reduce the number of aircraft we use in our domestic network substantially by retiring our DC-8s.

That will continue to prove benefits.

And we've also made a lot of creative changes in how we operate.

So we do think about two-thirds of these savings will be sustainable at least in the medium term.

And, John, I would add that I think we will have additional savings.

We done an awful lot of things on the network that we see more opportunities in the future.

And with the expansion of Worldport, the final piece of that being completed next year, it gives us more opportunity to generate more network savings.

So we are not done generating savings also.

Okay, great.

And then the second question was on the ground volume side.

I understand kind of the days adjustment that you had mentioned, but most of the freight environment that we have seen has shown a noticeably less negative trend, whether it is rail, whether it is trucking, freight, truckload, less-than-truckload, ocean liners.

I'm a little bit surprised we didn't see more movement on the ground business sequentially from the developments in the second quarter.

Any thoughts on that front?

Well, if you factor out the working day, in effect, that we divided by one extra day from the market, that gets us probably closer to about a 4.5% decline, which is a sequential 1% improvement in the ground.

And we saw a little better sequential improvement later in the quarter.

July, both for the holiday and just the results, was pretty bleak.

So it is what it is.

We did see modest improvement, both because of seasonality and we think some because of sequential improvements.

But we're not trying to say that things have gone fully back to recovery.

But we did see some strength in that.

And typically, the small package ground lags some of your heavier modes and your express in a recovery a little bit if there is some urgency for restocking.

I think clearly as you head into October and November, that was kind of the worst case last year, when there was somewhat paralysis from the financial crisis, so that the comps get much easier in October and November.

We had a pretty good Christmas season two weeks before Christmas, but up until then it was a pretty weak fourth quarter.

So the comps get easier going forward.

Gary Chase, Barclays.

Two questions on fuel, the topic that seems to be increasingly on people's minds these days, for obvious reasons.

First, saw a lot of trade-down in the air business as fuel prices peaked.

Wondering, as you talk to customers, how they are thinking about the thought that seems to be front and center in just about everything you read, that energy is going to accompany any upside movement in the economic trend.

Are you getting any feedback to suggest there might be more trade-down coming?

No.

I think if anything, we're seeing a little bit of the opposite right now.

In the last year third quarter, we had 29% higher fuel surcharges than what we had in the third quarter of this year.

So we are actually seeing tremendous stability, and in fact you are seeing our air products show some resilience.

So, at least at the current levels, where you do have surcharges that are significantly below last year and the gap between air and ground is fairly modest, we are seeing, if anything, really no signs of continued trade-down.

I think we mentioned last quarter that we'd seen that stabilize.

Clearly, with fuel heading back up, it's at the $80 or so today, there will be some short-term headwinds for us with the lag of the fuel surcharge, in dramatic contrast to the tailwind we got last year.

But our sense is, unless fuel climbs another, I don't know, $15 a barrel or so, it is unlikely that those surcharges will be too detrimental to demand.

And hopefully, if the economy continues to pick up, that will be outweighed by the need for rapid replenishment of inventories.

And as a follow-up, you talked in the past about the discounting of base rates during this process of fuel peaking.

Were the surcharges largely intact, so as energy prices move we should expect pretty good surcharge coverage looking forward?

Certainly compliance is higher with fuel surcharges in the single digits than it was when it went through 30%.

That really created some tremendous pain for our customers and a lot of pressures on us for incentives.

So we do see higher compliance rates right now.

But as I said in my prepared comments, yield management and making sure that we extract the value for the services we perform is one of our absolute top priorities in the domestic environment.

We are seeing base rates up modestly, if you factor out fuel and other factors.

But it's still not at the level we think it should be, and that will continue to be a priority for us.

Okay, guys.

Thanks very much.

Tom Wadewitz, JPMorgan.

I wanted to see if you could give us some perspective on the impact of currency.

We estimate something like 10% of your revenue comes from your Europe business.

And obviously, you're seeing a pretty sharp move of dollar weakness recently.

It seems like there would be a natural benefit there, but I know you're active with hedging.

So I wonder if you could just take us through how dollar weakness potentially affects your international profitability and also kind of the timing of that impact in light of your hedging?

For Q3, currency was a headwind.

If you recall last year, the euro was spiked up significantly higher than it was in Q3.

So currency was a headwind for us in the third quarter.

The dollar actually weakened late in the third quarter.

It's going to help us in the fourth quarter, but not much in the third.

Yes.

It will show certainly a strengthening coming into Q4, but Q3 was the headwind.

I guess I was thinking more in terms of 2010.

If the dollar stayed at $1.50 to the euro or weakened further, how does hedging offset the benefit, or would you pretty clearly get a margin benefit and a translation benefit in 2010 if the dollar keeps weakening?

Tom, we've talked about this a lot in the past.

We are hedged in 2010, and we would not expect a negative comparison based on our hedging position we have right now.

And we have some upside, too.

We deal with collars, but we have quite a bit of room on the upside.

So we're positioned very well for 2010.

Okay, great.

Well, I guess I will count that as one question if you let me.

A follow-up, we've heard about strengthening airfreight out of Asia on the heavyweight airfreight side.

You heard about a spike, kind of a spike recently in China.

Does that kind of follow through that you would see some good pickup in your parcel side out of Asia and that you see a spike there as well, or do you think that is kind of decoupled from what is happening on the heavyweight side?

We did see some sequential firming really across the world, and Asia, through September.

The most notable event that has happened, which really confirms what you're saying, is the last several weeks we have seen a significant firming of demand on the airfreight side.

So things are very busy on the airfreight side.

I think it is too soon to call whether that will ripple through as substantially into package.

But the combination of us having both the airfreight and the package and the hard assets of the aircraft allows us to prosper really from either one of those two.

Okay, thanks for the time.

Ken Hoexter, Merrill Lynch.

Can that you just talk a bit about, on this air and ground divergence here, in past downturns, have you seen the dichotomy get this wide where you're seeing the express run up so much more in advance of ground?

I think if you look historically, Ken, you do see air have more leverage, both to the positive and the negative.

So that isn't totally surprising.

There is certainly also more impact from the DHL departure from the US market on the air business.

So I don't want to draw too strong a point on it.

But on the other hand, also, this recession is much different than some of the ones in the past.

And inventory levels are very low.

We think it is premature to say that restocking is a dramatic part of that, but it is an interesting time for that, and we're going to be continuing to watch that closely.

Then just secondly, on the LTL segment, I know it is small, but the weight per shipment really dropped very significantly this quarter relative to where you were.

Is there something driving that business?

Because it seemed to have impacted the profitability a bit there.

No, we're pretty pleased with our operating results on the UPS Freight.

Clearly, the industry is still struggling dramatically.

We do think there is some cannibalization of the heavier-weight shipments going to truckload.

I think another big part of it is that our go-to-market strategy of targeting the very large base of UPS customers, most notably in the middle market, is paying off.

And they tend to have lighter-weight shipments.

But that is obvious in our yields, our revenue per hundredweight just down 6%.

That would have been up 4% positive, just taking fuel out of the equation.

So we feel very good that we are seeing very good discipline on the yield side and continuing to outgrow the market on our shipments.

I think the key to us getting weights back across the board on our products is industrial production.

Even though we are starting to see it strengthen in the third quarter, and it was positive quarter over quarter, it was still down almost 10% year over year.

We are optimistic going forward that IP will actually outperform GDP as it comes back.

But it's got a long ways to go to get back to 2007 levels.

That will help our weight.

Great.

Thanks, guys.

Edward Wolfe, Wolfe Research.

Just kind of big picture, if I look at the domestic package OR, it's worse than I would've expected down here, and probably the international is holding up a bit better.

And it just feels like the domestic package volumes have weakened and the margins not improving like the other margins are.

Is that a fair way to think about it, that the mix as ground shrinks and the air, maybe from some of the DHL stuff and so forth, grows, that it is tougher to get this margin back to where it was historically?

And is there a plan to start to work on that mix and kind of focus on the ground a bit as you go out longer term?

We continue to be very focused on managing this domestic environment, Ed.

We are seeing still a headwind on our average weights.

Weight is down about 7%.

And maybe to follow up a little more on the ground trends, the ground is significantly impacted by this industrial and wholesale environment, as Scott mentioned.

That is part of why you are seeing a little bit of a lag.

We are seeing some firming in the economy, but it is not showing up substantially in industrial production.

That really makes that ground product and our domestic business move heavily.

If you look, though, sequentially, quarter to quarter, we actually improved margins from Q2 to Q3, Ed.

And historically, those margins dropped, say, 40, 50 basis points sequentially.

We actually improved them 50 basis points.

So we are pretty confident that the aggressive cost management we're doing and the firming of yields that is beginning to take some impact are actually kicking in and that we do feel that the Q3 performance was better than Q2.

As a follow-up, on the international domestic side, volumes are up quite a bit relative to last quarter.

Can you talk about how much of that is acquisition and what else is driving that?

Yes.

There's really three factors driving that.

First is -- and it is a substantial different than the negative results in Q2.

First is that we did see some sequential firming in our major markets.

The UK, Germany, France, Poland, Canada, all of them, both our execution on market share gains and we think some stability in the market helped us generate positive growth in those countries.

In addition, as Scott mentioned, we have expanded our domestic services, added another 16 countries.

We have found we can effectively layer in domestic express services in some of these smaller countries where we offer export services.

And then third is the inclusion of the Turkey numbers in our results.

Turkey is a substantial economy, and it did take us from being just slightly positive to substantially positive.

We will continue to see the benefit of that and are excited about having that extra capability in our portfolio.

Ed, I think the one area that I was surprised with was Europe.

I think in the previous calls, I've said I've been a little bit more optimistic on Asia and probably the US export that I have been in Europe.

But we did see surprisingly good improvement in Europe.

As Kurt mentioned, good growth in Germany, France, UK is showing some improvement.

So, again, I'm not quite as bearish on Europe as I was in the previous calls; it's looking better.

No, it sounds that.

But did I hear right?

It is 9 points of improvement from the acquisition, give or take?

No.

We would have been modestly positive without that.

It's a little less than that.

Okay.

Thanks, guys, for the time.

Bill Greene, Morgan Stanley.

Just a couple of data questions.

Can you tell me what the US import volume trends look like and what B2C volume trends look like as well in the quarter?

Import US improved modestly, still remained negative.

Import and export US are both about the same right now.

We're not seeing a big move either way.

Sorry, Kurt, did you say improved modestly year over year?

No, no.

That was sequential.

(multiple speakers) over the course of the quarter, still negative year over year.

We haven't seen a big move in US imports or exports.

Certainly, the US/Asia numbers are firming a little better than what we saw for the US and Europe relationship.

I think other than that the Europe exports to US obviously are weak, with the weakness of the dollar.

And the B2C numbers are flat to slightly positive.

That segment has moved down dramatically versus some of the double-digit numbers we saw several years ago.

Sure.

And then when you guys report UPS basic, do you put it in the ground numbers?

Yes, that is included in our package numbers.

We do have a mail innovation unit that handles flats and more in the mail injection services.

That is included in our logistics group.

Robin Byde, HSBC.

Just a question on international export.

I think I heard you say that volumes and margins should recover in Q4.

Can you just say a bit about what is going to drive that, please?

Well, I think seasonally, Q4 is typically a better quarter for us than Q3.

So we do expect to see some modest margin improvements from that.

Plus, we are seeing modest firming, we think, in trends across the world.

And frankly, Robin, we continue to be very optimistic that we are gaining market share.

I mean, UPS remains very focused.

We've got a strong business model and some very large points of differentiation, having a balanced capability across the world.

So we are looking for continued market share growth, continued improvements in margins, and are pleased with our progress in that arena.

And just a follow-up -- thank you -- is this market share gain mainly in Europe domestic?

No, no.

The international export numbers, we've continued to dramatically outperform the industry by just about any measure.

We think that we're continuing to do that.

We're seeing good success in competing against DHL across the world, with them having a big gap in their US portfolio.

And frankly, we remain, we think, the only player that has got a strong value proposition in all areas of the globe.

You look at the trends over the last three to five years, there's been a very consistent outperformance of the market.

Great.

Thank you.

Nate Brochmann, William Blair.

Just kind of a bigger-picture question as well.

I know that there is still work to do and I know that these early signs of recovery are kind of tepid, at best.

But do you start, in terms of the big-picture strategy, kind of thinking a little bit differently now at this kind of inflection point as things are firming up a little bit, where we go from aggressive cost reduction to maybe a little bit more modest and looking a little bit more at some of the growth drivers?

I think, Nate, that our strategy is sound, and I think that I'm a firm believer that global trade is going to kind of lead us out of this recession that we are in.

So I think UPS is positioned extremely well.

I think our focus on the products we're looking at today, the international products, the domestic products, I think puts in a very good position to participate in the growth.

I'm very optimistic that UPS is in the right place at the right time.

And kind of just as a tangent question to that, in terms of the plans for intra-China in terms of maybe an update there with that a lot of growth coming out of that region?

Clearly, we've done very well in China on the import and export side for many years.

And I don't see any change ahead of us there.

There are some challenges competing domestically in China.

I think it is pretty clear that people are aware of the new China postal law that came into effect on October 1.

That limits the international carriers from participating in the domestic letter market, which we think is unfair and think that it is bad for China to keep the international companies out of that marketplace.

But, notwithstanding, we're going to continue to look for opportunities to expand in domestic China in the years ahead because we know it will be a strong market.

In the meantime, we will continue to prosper in the import and export portion of that market.

Great, thank you very much.

David Ross, Stifel Nicolaus.

A question just on the UPS Basic.

It is a very small piece of the portfolio, and I wanted to get your sense on how you think about growing that, given the success that others have had growing the consolidator business as I guess a secondary offering to ground.

We actually led the market with the introduction of Basic a number of years ago.

And that continues to be a part of our portfolio.

We really have three product lines that can address the needs of B2C shippers -- our traditional UPS product, whether that is ground or air, depending on the speed need, and that comes with all the bells and whistles, tracking capability, guarantees.

We have the US Basic that is for lighter-weight packages and which UPS delivers the majority of those packages, but in many of the territories that are more outlying, we do inject those into the post office.

And then we have our Mail Innovations group that is a key part of our logistics group that offers services for injection into the mail, primarily focused at third-class injection.

And that also handles a number of packages that are very lightweight, typically a pound or less.

So that is a portfolio that we enjoy, and we do continue to offer value to customers based on the trade-off of service and speed and value.

And then just a follow-up question on, I guess, the package cars that are running around the US.

You've had some alternative fuel, I guess, tested in there.

Can you explain what is going on with maybe a shift in the fleet?

We continue to aggressively develop and deploy alternative fuel vehicles.

We continue to have the largest private fleet of alternative fuel vehicles in the US.

We have been adding natural gas vehicles, a number of those, in those locations where the infrastructure is available, and we'll continue to do that.

We also have added several hundred hybrid electric vehicles, and we're seeing good results there.

And then really our newest technology is the hybrid hydraulic that re-stores braking energy into a hydraulic tank and allows the vehicle, then, to start off of that.

And that has very substantial benefits on returning the energy that is lost.

But it is still early in the game.

We certainly have one of the largest rolling laboratories in the world out there right now.

But I think what it's going to take is it's going to take industry to come together and government to come together and agree on standardization of the right alternative energy vehicles to get this to be economically the right thing to do.

So we're working on it, we're leading the way, but we've got a ways to go.

Thank you very much.

Justin Yagerman, Deutsche Bank.

Just curious, we're starting to lap the comps on DHL pulling out of the domestic market here.

I guess when you do the postmortem, how do you think you guys fared from a market share standpoint?

Where did you get more than you thought you would?

Where did you get less?

And maybe you could talk a little bit about the stickiness of that business and whether or not you still think there's still market share opportunities to attract it.

You know, Justin, it has been a while.

So the longer time goes on, the fuzzier it gets as customers adapt and evolve.

But clearly, we are confident that we did get a little more than half of the available revenues from that opportunity late last year and that we've been pretty successful in including that into our business and certainly solidifying relationships with those customers.

Those packages were lighter weight than average, and so there was some impact, and you're seeing that in some of our yields.

But we feel very good that we've successfully made that transition.

Domestic market share, that is pretty much stable, but the focus on international products against DHL continues to be a top priority for us.

They are the market leader in much of Asia and Europe.

So we feel very comfortable competing with them.

The value proposition of technology, service and quality that UPS offers stands up very well with them.

And that continues to be one of the catalysts for our outperformance internationally.

Got it.

And I guess along those lines, as we look at the free cash flow generation that you guys have been able to achieve and think about emerging a recovery, hopefully, in the overall economy, when you start thinking about opportunities and acquisitions out there for you guys, I guess it would be interesting to hear you talk about -- I know you break down different geographies in terms of whether or not you think they are mature or opportunities, and so maybe if any of those geographies have changed one way or the other and have become more attractive or less attractive.

Then maybe conceptually what types of acquisitions you're going to be looking for as we move into this environment, and if any of them are large scale, or if you think that you are more in a tuck-in mode on a go-forward basis?

Justin, this is Scott.

I think our strategy has not changed much.

I think we've been active right through the recession.

You've seen us doing a lot of acquisitions in the last 12 months, including Korea.

We talked about Turkey, Romania, Slovenia.

So we've been pretty active in that front.

And there's certainly been a lot of focus in Eastern Europe, a lot of focus still on Asia.

I think our priorities still are international package.

I think that would be our first priorities for where we do our acquisitions.

I've said in the past that I wanted to see our forwarding units start generating better margins before we got back into the market.

We've made a lot of progress in that area.

You're starting to see the margins improve.

You're starting to see us get close to generating economic profit in those arenas.

So it's more realistic that we'll look in that arena again moving forward.

But primarily, it would lead with international package, some interest in the supply chain arena, focused on forwarding, geography still probably Asia, MidEast, Eastern Europe would lead the way.

Got it.

Thanks for that color.

Appreciate it.

David Campbell, Thompson Davis.

I just wanted to clarify the international situation, where you mentioned increasing demand, shortages of capacity in some markets.

Therefore, as a forwarder, when you are buying capacity, you may get squeezed.

As a cargo carrier, you'll benefit from the higher yields.

Do you think the rates will go up as fast as the costs of purchase in the transportation markets as a forwarder?

Do you think your rates will match those cost increases?

David, there clearly is a challenge in the forwarding industry right now.

We saw a little bit of that in Q3 with margins beginning to tighten a little bit.

And so, no, I think there is an expectation that the forwarders will have to adapt to increasing demand and increasing rates.

That is just part of the cycle you live through.

We do think that, with our unique position of both our assets and other assets, we've got some options to route volume in a way that gives us a unique opportunity economically.

And so we are looking forward to that challenge.

But we have seen, as I said, the last probably three, four weeks in Asia, some real uptick, most notably on the high-tech side, with goods being exported in the freight side.

So that is a good sign.

And we'll adapt.

It may hurt us a little bit on the margin side, but it is good news overall.

If demand is so strong, why is it that shippers won't match the increases in costs?

Because they want to get their products out?

We'll see.

There is usually a lag.

But that's certainly our priority, is to make sure that we stay on the right side of this dynamic.

But it is pretty typical, and as you see cycles work in forwarding, that there is some margin compression on the way up.

Okay, thank you very much.

Chris Ceraso, Credit Suisse.

It seemed like you didn't get all that much leverage as you walked from Q2 to Q3.

Revenues were up, but the increase in operating profit on the back of that increase in revenue was relatively small.

Can you give us some feel for why that may be?

Is it fuel?

Is it mix?

And then, is this the kind of contribution, something around 10% or 11%, that we should expect as revenues increase sequentially going forward?

Well, Chris, Q3 typically is a challenging quarter.

Internationally, it tends to be one of the low quarters because there's significant vacations in August in Europe.

And Europe is certainly a heavy quarter for us.

And even domestically, the third quarter typically is a little less profitable than the second quarter, as we talked about.

We did see I guess a drag in our international segment, both from currency changes and fuel, modest drags, but that was a drag.

And on a year-over-year basis, clearly there were huge comps.

So we are pretty pleased, actually, that we operated effectively.

We didn't knock it out of the park in the third quarter, but we are seeing excellent operating results, continued reductions in costs, and feel pretty good that we actually overcame the normal seasonal downturn from Q2 to Q3 with our results.

And one big-picture question.

Have you seen any evidence, either in the US or internationally, of small business owners opening new accounts with UPS?

I think you'd mentioned in the past that that can be a lead indicator that the economy is starting to get better.

I think we're seeing some of that.

But I think Kurt kind of summarized the conditions pretty well.

There is still a mix out there.

There's still some people who want to see a little more recovery.

And we are in the early stages of it.

Obviously, we're seeing some new small business customers coming in, but still not at the rate we would like to see to know this is absolutely a sustained recovery.

Okay, thank you.

John Barnes, RBC Capital Markets.

Back to your comments about China domestic and your expansion possibilities there, seems like you get a rule change a month or so from the Chinese government as to what can only be handled by China Post and that type of thing.

Has that influenced you at all in terms of timing and pace at which you would look to move into that market?

I think it is something that all the international companies are concerned about, the new postal law that went in on October 1.

I don't think it is going to -- we're still going to have great interest in competing domestically in China.

We've had actually a great success with the Chinese government on the import and export and getting the rights, plane rights that we have for our new hubs, Shenzhen, Shanghai.

So the relationship has been good.

We're patient, and we think there will be some good opportunities going forward.

And then as you look at the fourth quarter, you normally do a fair amount of I guess part-time hiring in the fourth quarter for the holiday season and that type of thing.

Given where volumes are and that type of thing, and I would imagine some capacity in your system, is there any need to do much of that at all in the fourth quarter?

Yes, John.

We do expect to continue to do that.

I actually started with the Company as a temporary hire for Christmas.

And we're estimating about 50,000 jobs that will be added for the seasonal growth.

That is a little below what we normally do, but we're still looking, even if numbers come in at the low range of expectations for holiday shopping, it's still a big increase over the normal time of year.

And as I mentioned, there is a pretty wide divergence of opinions.

We're seeing some of the brick-and-mortar players be fairly conservative, but there is a number of the dot-com players that are expecting substantial increases.

So we'll see how that battle of the bulls and the bears turns out.

Very good.

Thanks for your time, guys.

That concludes our Q&A today.

I'm now going to turn the program over to Scott for some concluding remarks.

Thanks, Andy.

Let me made a couple of comments just regarding economic conditions.

I tend to be an optimist by nature, yet a realist by experience.

On balance, I believe this recovery is real, but is still fragile.

I believe it is sustainable and vulnerable, at least for the foreseeable future.

But I firmly believe that global trade will lead it rather than lag it.

And one thing I know for certain, UPS is at the forefront of global trade and is going to help lead the way.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

And this does conclude the UPS third-quarter earnings call.

You may now disconnect.