EnFreight forwarder Deutsche Post-DHL has formed a joint venture with healthcare technology firm Siemens Healthineers to provide a dedicated logistics support service in the U.S. The 10 year deal will hypothecate 63.3% of DHL’s new Memphis, TN. distribution center to Siemens and will involve the development of new, robotics based systems.
As outlined in Panjiva’s July 13 research, DP-DHL is only slowly seeing a recovery from COVID-19 while the freight forwarding sector is having to develop new, deeper service relationships with its customers in order to avoid another round of price-driven competition.
Panjiva data shows that Siemens’ healthcare business has not generally used freight forwarding services on U.S. seaborne import lanes, with less than 5% of shipments in the 12 months to June 30 linked to the firm involving a forwarder. The largest shipping line for the firm has been Orient Overseas which represented 65.1% of shipments.
As to be expected during COVID-19 there has been a pickup in Siemens’ shipments of medical equipment with an 11.2% year over year increase in Q2 following a 59.8% surge in Q1. The business had been growing significantly before that though with a 12.7% rise in 2019. The rapid growth is likely one reason for Siemens’ decision to start outsourcing its logistics.
Source: Panjiva
Shipping of medical technical equipment is currently highly fragmented. Panjiva’s data shows that the largest freight forwarder handling medical equipment in the 12 months to June 30 was K+N with a 6.6% market share followed by Expeditors with a 4.9% share.
The latter has been among the fastest growing recently with a 30.5% year over year expansion in Q2 compared to a 17.3% rise in shipments handled by DP-DHL and a 2.0% increase in those associated with K+N. By comparison total shipments have increased by 12.6% in Q2 after improving by just 2.0% in Q1.
Source: Panjiva
