Freightos Says Digital Platform Adoption Drove 36% Transaction Growth

Freightos, a vendor-neutral booking and payment platform for the international freight industry, reported record transactions for the fourth quarter of 2023.

The company recorded 286,900 transactions in the fourth quarter, marking the 16th consecutive quarter of record transactions on its platform, Freightos said in a Tuesday (Jan. 16) press release.

The milestone brings the total number of real-time global freight-rate comparison, booking and shipment management transactions for the full year to over 1 million, highlighting “the ongoing digitalization and platformification of the global freight industry,” according to the press release.

The 36% growth in transactions from the fourth quarter of 2022 reflects the increasing adoption of digital platforms in the freight industry, the release said.

International freight is “one of [the] last remaining offline industries,” Freightos said in an investor presentation released Tuesday. The full earnings report will be released Feb. 26.

With layers of intermediaries communicating manually, this sector has suffered from extra cost, delay, unpredictability, inflexibility and emissions, according to the presentation.

This has created an opportunity for platform businesses to “unlock massive value,” the presentation said.

Despite prevailing reduced freight rates in the market for most of the quarter, Freightos saw a 10% year-on-year increase in gross booking value (GBV) in the fourth quarter of 2023, per the press release.

This growth can be attributed to the strong transaction growth compensating for the rate decrease, according to the release. The disruption to shipping in the Red Sea led to a rate increase, but it occurred only in the final days of the year.

Freightos’ sustained transaction growth is driven by the marketplace flywheel dynamics, where buyer and seller growth attracts additional supply and demand, further fueling transaction growth, the release said.

In the fourth quarter, the number of unique buyer users reached 17,600, representing a 12% increase compared to the same period in 2022, per the release. The number of sellers also increased, with carriers selling on the platform reaching 45 in the fourth quarter, compared to 35 in the same quarter in 2022.

Freightos went public in January 2023 after closing a business combination with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Gesher I Acquisition Corp. The company said at the time that it planned to further scale the business, increase transaction growth and revenue, and further develop the technology stack.

For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B Newsletter.