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“I think the uncertainty has not been our friend, just like uncertainty is not a friend of any business,” Sanchez said. (Ryder System)

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Profit and revenue at Ryder System held relatively steady in the third quarter of 2025 despite weak rental and used vehicle sales markets and the ongoing freight recession hurting its dedicated transportation operations.

Executives told analysts the boded well for the coming quarters in spite of continued economic uncertainty.

“As I was going into this call, I thought there would be a lot more clarity this year than there was last year, given we had an election coming up last year. [But] there’s still a lot of uncertainty,” Ryder Chairman and CEO Robert Sanchez said during the company’s Oct. 23 earnings call.

“I think the uncertainty has not been our friend, just like uncertainty is not a friend of any business,” he added.

Miami-based Ryder posted a profit of $138 million in Q3, 2.8% below the year-ago period’s $142 million.

Overall, revenue was little changed at $3.171 billion, versus $3.168 billion in the year-ago period.

“The business continues to outperform prior cycles, demonstrating the impact from actions that we’ve taken under our balanced growth strategy to de-risk the business, increase the return profile, and accelerate growth in our asset-light supply chain and dedicated businesses,” Sanchez told analysts.

Rental Demand Below Historical Seasonal Levels

Revenue at Ryder’s fleet management solutions unit inched down to $1.465 billion in Q3 from $1.47 billion 12 months earlier.

Ryder’s ChoiceLease, rental and used vehicle sales operations are all part of the unit. ChoiceLease is the company’s leasing program.

ChoiceLease benefited from pricing and maintenance cost-saving initiatives, but that was offset by weaker used vehicle sales and rental markets.

“Rental results for the quarter reflect market conditions that remain weak. Rental demand increased sequentially, but the increase was below historical seasonal demand trends,” Chief Financial Officer Cristina Gallo-Aquino said during the call.

“By the end of this year, our [year-ending] rental fleet is expected to be down 12%, and our average rental fleet is expected to be down 5%. The rental fleet remains well below peak levels as we manage through an extended market downturn,” Chief Operating Officer John Diez added.

Used tractor and truck pricing declined 6% and 15% year over year, respectively, but were unchanged and up 7% compared with the second quarter of 2025.

“Sequential pricing benefited from a higher retail mix as we realized better proceeds using the retail sales channel versus the wholesale channel,” Gallo-Aquino noted.

Rental power-fleet utilization was 70%, compared with 71% in the year-ago period, on a 6% smaller average active power fleet.

Ryder’s supply chain solutions division saw a 5% increase in revenue to $1.38 billion in the most recent quarter from $1.32 billion in Q3 2024 as subcontracted transportation costs were passed through to customers and its omnichannel retail operations won more business.

Dedicated Unit Earnings Decline

The company’s dedicated transportation solutions unit posted a 10% decrease in revenue to $570 million from $633 million a year earlier as the prolonged freight market downturn trimmed fleet numbers.

“In dedicated, improved driver availability and lower recruiting and turnover costs are benefiting earnings but have been a headwind for new sales and revenue growth. As freight capacity and driver availability tighten, we expect to see incremental sales opportunities and improved revenue growth in DTS as private fleets seek solutions to address these challenges,” Sanchez said.

Part of that will be due to the Department of Transportation restricting access to commercial driver licenses and permits for non-domiciled drivers, although it is too early to quantify the impact.

“It’s hard to tell at this point still, right? We don’t know what the timing of this is, but the estimates are that it’s 5% of the driver market that could come out over the next couple of years. It’s probably not something that happens overnight. It happens over a period of time,” Sanchez said.

“Whenever there’s been a tightening of the driver market, it’s typically good news for outsourcing. We would expect to see some improvement, much-needed improvement, I would tell you, on demand for dedicated services. That’s an area that, as the market tightens up, you should see that,” he added.

Ryder ranks No. 6 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America, with Ryder Dedicated Transportation Solutions ranking No. 5 among truckload/dedicated carriers. The company also ranks No. 7 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America.