Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. (NASDAQ: ODFL) announced that third-quarter revenue increased 20.6% to $743.6 million from $616.5 million in the third quarter of 2013.
Net income was $77.9 million for the third quarter of 2014, up 29.5% from $60.1 million for the comparable quarter of 2013. Earnings per diluted share rose 28.6% to $0.90 for the third quarter of 2014 from $0.70 for the third quarter of 2013. The company's operating ratio improved to 83.0% for the third quarter of 2014 from 84.1% for the same period last year.
For the first nine months of 2014, revenue was $2.07 billion, an increase of 18.4% from $1.75 billion for the first nine months of 2013. Net income for the first nine months of 2014 rose 24.3% to $197.6 million from $159.0 million for the same prior-year period. Earnings per diluted share increased 24.5% to $2.29 for the first nine months of 2014 compared with $1.84 for the first nine months of 2013. Old Dominion's operating ratio improved to 84.1% for the first nine months of 2014 from 85.0% for the comparable period in 2013.
"Old Dominion produced outstanding financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2014," commented David S. Congdon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Old Dominion. "Our continued profitable growth resulted in quarterly records for our revenue, net income and earnings per diluted share, as well as a company record for our third-quarter operating ratio. We believe our 20.6% growth in revenue was once again driven primarily by increased market share, as we continued to deliver industry-leading customer service.
"Our revenue growth during the quarter was primarily the result of an 18.7% increase in LTL tons and a 1.6% increase in LTL revenue per hundredweight, or 2.2% excluding fuel surcharges, despite the negative impact on this yield metric from the 2.5% increase in weight per shipment and 1.0% decline in our average length of haul. The improvement in our yield and increase in freight density contributed to the 110 basis-point improvement in our third-quarter operating ratio. We are particularly pleased with this improvement, which was achieved even as we incurred increased operating costs associated with our salaries, wages and benefits as well as our multi-year IT modernization effort.
“To keep pace with our revenue growth, we increased the number of our full-time employees by over 2,000 employees, or 14.6%, over the past twelve months, with 868 of those new employees hired during the third quarter of 2014. We place a tremendous amount of effort and attention on educating and training both our new and experienced employees to ensure that we continue to deliver the very best service in the industry.”