DHL's profit engine shifts: forwarding and Supply Chain carry growth as Express slows

The global express and parcels market grew 5.8% in 2025 to €577.3bn ($642.6bn), yet DHL's third-quarter results show the group's growth is now coming from outside its flagship Express division.

Express continues to earn roughly 60% of group profit, the Q3 report confirms. But the division faces what DHL describes as a growing divide between volume growth and profitable growth — a distinction that now defines the strategic picture for the world's largest integrator.

The headline figures were pre-released three weeks ago. The full third-quarter report therefore matters most for its breakdown of where DHL's momentum actually sits, and the answer is not Express.

Where is DHL's growth actually coming from?

Two divisions carry the story.

Global Forwarding is winning air freight faster than its main rivals in a tight market. The forwarder has outgrown competitors on air cargo volumes at a moment when airline belly capacity and freighter availability remain constrained — conditions that historically reward forwarders with strong carrier relationships and buying power.

Supply Chain, the contract logistics arm, has signed new contracts up 42% this year. Data centres rank among its growth sectors, a sign that logistics demand is following the build-out of digital infrastructure rather than traditional retail and industrial patterns alone.

The pattern is consistent: the divisions that do not own aircraft are outperforming the one that does.

What does this change for DHL?

The practical question is whether the current momentum survives when tight air capacity eases. Global Forwarding's air freight gains have come during a capacity-constrained market — a tailwind that has inflated yields and rewarded volume growth across the forwarding sector.

That tailwind is the report's stated open question. If air capacity normalises, the rate environment softens and the competitive advantage of scale buying narrows, Global Forwarding's share gains become harder to defend at the same pace.

For Express, the challenge runs in the opposite direction. The division's problem is not demand but the quality of that demand: volumes are growing, but the profitability of each incremental volume is under pressure. A 5.8% market expansion to €577.3bn has not translated evenly into margin across the parcels value chain.

The structural read

Three facts frame the quarter:

• The express and parcels market reached €577.3bn ($642.6bn) in 2025, up 5.8% — growth that is real but unevenly distributed.
• Express contributes about 60% of DHL group profit, a concentration that makes the division's profitability divide the group's single largest exposure.
• Supply Chain's new contract volume is up 42% this year, with data centres emerging as a growth sector — diversification into demand drivers less tied to trade cycles in physical goods.

The pre-release of headline numbers three weeks before the full report also signals how DHL is managing expectations: the group put the topline story out early, and the detail — the Express profit squeeze, the forwarding outperformance, the contract logistics surge — landed in the fuller disclosure.

For rivals and investors, the report's signal is that DHL's growth profile is broadening beyond its integrator core. Whether Global Forwarding can hold its air freight share gains as capacity loosens, and whether Express can close the gap between volume growth and profitable growth, will define the group's 2026 trajectory.