Freight transportation intermediary C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q4 CY2025, with sales falling 6.5% year on year to $3.91 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $1.23 per share was 9.2% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
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C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW) Q4 CY2025 Highlights:
- Revenue: $3.91 billion vs analyst estimates of $3.99 billion (6.5% year-on-year decline, 1.9% miss)
- Adjusted EPS: $1.23 vs analyst estimates of $1.13 (9.2% beat)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $207.8 million vs analyst estimates of $211.2 million (5.3% margin, 1.6% miss)
- Operating Margin: 4.6%, in line with the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 7.4%, up from 6% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $21.31 billion
"The fourth quarter certainly provided a challenging macro environment, with weak global freight demand, rising spot costs in trucking and falling ocean rates all providing headwinds to our business," said President and Chief Executive Officer, Dave Bozeman.
Company Overview
Engaging in contracts with tens of thousands of transportation companies, C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) offers freight transportation and logistics services.
Revenue Growth
A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Unfortunately, C.H. Robinson Worldwide struggled to consistently increase demand as its $16.23 billion of sales for the trailing 12 months was close to its revenue five years ago. This wasn’t a great result and suggests it’s a lower quality business.
We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss cycles, industry trends, or a company capitalizing on catalysts such as a new contract win or a successful product line. C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s recent performance shows its demand remained suppressed as its revenue has declined by 4% annually over the last two years. C.H. Robinson Worldwide isn’t alone in its struggles as the Air Freight and Logistics industry experienced a cyclical downturn, with many similar businesses observing lower sales at this time. 
We can better understand the company’s revenue dynamics by analyzing its most important segments, North American surface transportation and Global Forwarding, which are 71.8% and 18.7% of revenue. Over the last two years, C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s North American surface transportation revenue (transportation brokerage) averaged 3.6% year-on-year declines. On the other hand, its Global Forwarding revenue (worldwide ocean, air, customers ) averaged 4.8% growth. 
This quarter, C.H. Robinson Worldwide missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 6.5% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $3.91 billion of revenue.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 4.1% over the next 12 months. Although this projection suggests its newer products and services will catalyze better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.
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Operating Margin
C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s operating margin has risen over the last 12 months and averaged 4.4% over the last five years. The company’s higher efficiency is a breath of fresh air, but its suboptimal cost structure means it still sports lousy profitability for an industrials business. This result isn’t too surprising given its low gross margin as a starting point.
Analyzing the trend in its profitability, C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s operating margin might fluctuated slightly but has generally stayed the same over the last five years, meaning it will take a fundamental shift in the business model to change. C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s performance was poor, but we noticed this is a broad theme as many similar Air Freight and Logistics companies saw their margins fall (along with revenue, as mentioned above) because the cycle turned in the wrong direction.
This quarter, C.H. Robinson Worldwide generated an operating margin profit margin of 4.6%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company’s cost structure has recently been stable.
Earnings Per Share
Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.
C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s EPS grew at an unimpressive 6.5% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This performance was better than its flat revenue but doesn’t tell us much about its business quality because its operating margin didn’t improve.
We can take a deeper look into C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s earnings to better understand the drivers of its performance. A five-year view shows that C.H. Robinson Worldwide has repurchased its stock, shrinking its share count by 11.3%. This tells us its EPS outperformed its revenue not because of increased operational efficiency but financial engineering, as buybacks boost per share earnings. 
Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a shorter period to see if we are missing a change in the business.
For C.H. Robinson Worldwide, its two-year annual EPS growth of 25.7% was higher than its five-year trend. This acceleration made it one of the faster-growing industrials companies in recent history.
In Q4, C.H. Robinson Worldwide reported adjusted EPS of $1.23, up from $1.21 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 9.2%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s full-year EPS of $5.09 to grow 18%.
Key Takeaways from C.H. Robinson Worldwide’s Q4 Results
It was good to see C.H. Robinson Worldwide beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also glad its Global Forwarding revenue topped Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its revenue missed and its North American surface transportation revenue fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this was a weaker quarter. The stock traded up 7% to $197.20 immediately following the results.
Is C.H. Robinson Worldwide an attractive investment opportunity right now? We think that the latest quarter is only one piece of the longer-term business quality puzzle. Quality, when combined with valuation, can help determine if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
