Eurowag today said it was seeing the beginnings of a economic recovery in Europe as the firm returned to profitability.
The London-listed transport technology business, which provides mission critical data, insights and payment and financing transactions for trucking companies, said it was “starting to see some signs of economic recovery in the first quarter with the load spot market and kilometres driven improving in some of our larger markets.”
Speaking to UKTN, CEO Martin Vohánka said: “Trucking is making 5% of European GDP…so that’s why it’s so important.
“What we observed in the last period was rather flat or in some markets even slightly negative.
“However, what we’ve seen since November, December and continued into January, February and the beginning of March…these months were better than last year by a few percentage points, which suggests that we might be cautiously optimistic about this year.”
Eurowag today reported a 7.1% rise in total revenues to €2.2bn for 2024, as the company turned around a 2023 loss of €39m to a pre-tax profit of €11.7m for the year.
The total number of trucks using its services jumped 10% to top 300,000, while the number of trucks using its payment solutions rose 10.8% to just over 100,000.
Vohánka said he did not expect any changes to European trucking patterns in the near term in light of increased tariffs on Europe from the US.
“I personally consider these protectionist measures as very negative — history has proven it multiple times,” he said.
“What is happening now in the US is an even stronger signal for Europe to become more independent and more resilient.
“What for trucking is really determining [activity levels] is really overall volume of economic activity and that’s why we might be concerned about in Europe because of these tariffs.”
Eurowag shares rose 1.3% to 60p in early London trade.