The Deutsche Post DHL Group said it will be raising its profit guidance this year after its third quarter performance exceeded expectations.

The announcement came as DHL released its preliminary results for the July-September period, where the Group's EBIT reached around €2.040 billion in the third quarter 2022 — up from the €1.771 billion recorded during the same Q3 period in 2021.

"[The] Group EBIT for the first nine months of this year reached around €6.5 billion (9M 2021: €5.765 billion). Therefore, 2022 EBIT guidance (currently: €8.0 billion +/-5%) will be revised upwards with the formal release of full third quarter 2022 earnings on November 8, 2022," DHL said.

DHL said e-commerce helped drive volumes coming closer to strongly elevated levels delivered last year.

Good performance across all segments

"The Group has recorded a good business development in the third quarter of this year. As expected, year-on-year comparison of e-commerce driven B2C shipment volumes improved in the third quarter of 2022, after volumes recorded a more pronounced decline in the first half of 2022," the express logistics giant said.

It added that against the backdrop of overall macroeconomic uncertainties, transport volumes in the B2B business reflected a softer demand.

Consequently, the capacity situation in Ocean and Air Freight markets has eased, according to DHL, and overall network activities in all DHL divisions maintained "good utilization levels" leading to an improved EBIT.

For its express division, DHL said this segment reached around €1 billion in the third quarter, compared to previous year's quarter of €971 million.

EBIT in Global Forwarding, Freight stood at around €585 million in the third quarter of 2022, ahead of previous year's quarter of €372 million, and profit at its Supply Chain business came in at around €220 million in Q3 2022, also well above last year's quarter result which stood at €142 million.

Meanwhile, DHL said e-Commerce Solutions recorded EBIT of around €85 million in the third quarter 2022, below the €91 million recorded during the same quarter in 2021.

"The continued positive earnings development was successfully converted into a growing free cash flow. Free cash flow in the third quarter 2022 amounted to more than €1.5 billion (Q3 2021: €1.257 billion)," it added, noting that the comprehensive disclosure for third quarter 2022 will be published on November 8.