North America Freight And Logistics Market - Growth, Trends, Covid-19 Impact, And Forecast (2023-2028)

The size of the North America Freight And Logistics Market is USD 1,327 billion in the current year and is anticipated to register a CAGR of over 4% during the forecast period. The market is driven by trade in the region. Furthermore, the market is driven by the advanced technology and equipment being used by logistics firms in the region.

Key Highlights

• Besides transportation and distribution services, numerous niche players offer specialized services, such as reverse logistics, IT services, and consulting, in the market. Moreover, owing to environmental concerns, the adoption of green logistics solutions has witnessed growth in recent years. The United States represents the region's major logistics market with a highly integrated supply chain network that links producers and consumers through multiple transportation modes, such as air and expresses delivery services, freight rail, maritime, and truck transport.
• Trade continues to improve steadily, and the economy is consistently growing. However, the industry is affected by driver shortage, tight capacity, infrastructure, and regulations. Ports and airports are investing in new capacities to cope with the ongoing demand. Rail and intermodal services are improving capacity and labour disputes, although shippers across the region complain of poor services. Large fleet owners are investing heavily in new trucks, driving associated supply chains. Competition is fierce among the North American ports. The US ports are straining under increasing tonnage and, in some cases, the inability to service mega-ships. In the past five years, many ships were diverted to Canadian rivals. Many ports seek funding for dredging to deepen harbours and obtain the equipment needed to support the increasingly large mega-ships blamed by the US West Coast ports, particularly for congestion problems.
• The for-hire truckload markets of today provide a lot of capacity options and better prices starting in early 2022. The market decline that began in late Q1 2022 and lasted all of last year has persisted and might continue for most of 2023. The production and retail sales of Class 8 tractors are still supporting the truckload supply. Carriers are receiving much-needed new equipment that they fought to get during the outbreak. The fleets' average age of tractors will be lowered as a result. The answer will depend on both the amount of new freight produced and how the carrier community reacts to an oversupplied market. As a leading signal of balance recovery, the cost per mile for the truckload spot market is not likely to grow in the first half of 2023.
• The booming years for North American logistics companies may soon be over as demand and economic activity are predicted to slow in 2023. Truckload, less-than-truckload, and railroads may confront more difficult conditions in 2019 after two years of strong earnings growth. Overall, normalizing freight markets and moderating economic activity are projected to harm North American truckload performance, leading to anaemic growth of 0.9% in 2023 after a boost of 2.5% in 2022. Equipment sales, which have benefited carriers this year, are projected to suffer in the coming year as comparisons grow more difficult and interest in secondhand tractors declines. Railroads will be able to ignore flat volume growth by implementing productivity strategies and raising prices to increase profits.

North America Freight & Logistics Market Trends

E-commerce growth is driving the market

E-commerce companies have customized mobile applications to showcase their products with all the required specifications, making customers place orders easily. The increased use of smartphones and the implementation of the 5G network for connectivity make the process flexible and flawless. The region has educated and digitally driven audiences. Due to the prominence of social media applications, marketing possibilities are abundant nowadays, which aids in propelling the e-commerce market toward growth trajectories in the region. A lot of mergers and acquisitions are on the trend among regional companies to increase their capability in the E-commerce business. For example, Descartes, a Canada-based software-as-a-service solutions provider, announced the purchase of XPS Technologies, an e-commerce shipping solutions company, for USD 65 million.

Due to less communication and infrastructure costs, established organizations and large corporations are strategizing their operation toward online business. The E-commerce channel allows the organization to reach out to more clients, resulting in essential exposure to the firm. The increasing importance of online marketing tools such as Google advertisements and Facebook ads is also driving e-commerce. For example, Walmart has 4,700 locations across the United States, and 90% of people in the country live within 10 miles of a Walmart shop. The company is now planning its massive store network to expand its e-commerce operation because of its potential. This shows the growth of the E-Commerce market in North America.

With the increased usage of connected networks, the e-commerce business is growing. Still, it creates security and privacy, breaching malicious threats to users and companies. Security risks include hacking, data exploitation, financial theft, phishing attacks, unsecured service delivery, and credit card fraud. This is limiting the market growth because users are reluctant to subscribe to the network of comparatively newer e-commerce sites because of the threats of security breaches. A huge e-commerce hack is affecting over 500 stores using the Magento 1 platform. All the sites targeted were still running on the 12-year-old Magento 1 e-commerce platform, which Adobe will no longer support on June 30, 2020. Adobe has asked users to migrate to the latest platform, but approximately 95,000 e-commerce sites still use the older version.

During COVID-19, many people went online to acquire necessities, propelling e-commerce sales to unprecedented heights. Before COVID-19, e-commerce was rapidly expanding. However, the pandemic drove the market even more by encouraging them to spend more money and do so more frequently. Thus, this sector is one of the few that have experienced a positive impact of the pandemic on growth.

United States trucking industry at the core of North American logistics market

Commonly, goods are transported from manufacturing plants to retail distribution centers, but there are other common uses, such as the transportation of building materials and waste, in the construction industry. Trucking is responsible for most of the overland freight movement in the United States, with the market worth USD 875.5 billion in the base year. At that time, over 902,000 truck drivers were employed in the United States, which is less than the industry requirement. Owing to this driver shortage, driver costs were the biggest challenge faced by the industry. The US trucking industry can be divided into three main sectors: full truckload (FTL), less-than-truckload (LTL), and couriers.

Numerous factors impacted how the industry functioned and changed the way work is received within this industry. While many companies within this industry are going under due to harsh market conditions, many choose to go the alternative route and merge with others. According to an industry survey, some key trucking service companies' offerings include FTL, logistics services, brokerage, LTL, temperature control, and intermodal.

North America Freight & Logistics Market Competitor Analysis

The North America Freight And Logistics Market is expected to grow due to economic growth, growing population, and industrialization. Some of the major players in the market include XPO Logistics Inc, J B Hunt Transport Services, Deutsche Post DHL, United Parcel Service, C H Robinson Worldwide, Penske Logistics, and Grupo Traxion. However, the lack of the government’s commitment to the development of seaports or road networks and reconfigured supply chains, with the growing local production and consumption units, are expected to hamper the market’s growth. New competitors are entering the market with customized and industry-specific services.

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