State of global freight 2026

Between September 2025 and January 2026 we surveyed 412 shippers across building materials, FMCG, pharma, auto, and retail e-commerce. We asked them about cost, delays, technology adoption, vendor consolidation, and the workflows that consume the most operator time. The full report runs 56 pages. This page is the executive summary and the five findings that surprised us most.

Finding 1 — Freight cost is up, but rate cards aren't

Median freight cost as a percentage of revenue rose from 4.8% to 5.6% over the last 18 months — but contracted carrier rates rose only 2.1% in the same window. The delta is from spot exposure (rising volume of unplanned shipments), detention charges, and settlement leakage. The cost increase is operational, not commercial.

Finding 2 — Tech adoption is bimodal

Shippers split cleanly into two camps. The "consolidated" camp (38% of respondents) runs a single TMS-of-record across modules. The "stitched" camp (62%) runs 3+ tools that exchange data via files or manual reconciliation. The gap in operational outcomes between the two camps is wider than the gap between large and small shippers — which wasn't what we expected.

Stitched-camp average outcomes

• POD-to-invoice cycle: 18.4 days
• Time-to-allocate per indent: 32 minutes
• Disputed shipments: 4.2% of total

Consolidated-camp average outcomes

• POD-to-invoice cycle: 4.1 days
• Time-to-allocate per indent: 9 minutes
• Disputed shipments: 1.6% of total

Finding 3 — AI adoption is overstated

68% of respondents said they "use AI" in their freight operations. When pressed, only 21% could name a specific workflow where an AI feature changed an outcome. The most-cited concrete uses: ETA prediction (14%), POD OCR (11%), and exception classification (7%). Everything else is dashboards.

Finding 4 — Vendor consolidation is happening

Median number of freight-tech vendors per shipper dropped from 5.2 to 3.8 over 18 months. The vendors getting cut are point-tools — single-feature products like standalone fuel-card readers and one-off freight-audit services. The vendors growing share are platforms with 4+ modules and a meaningful data layer.

Finding 5 — Compliance is the silent budget item

Compliance penalties — E-Way bill expiries, FASTag failures, GST mismatches — added a median of 0.4% of freight spend in the survey window. The 90th percentile was 1.7%. Almost every shipper underestimated this category in their planning, because the penalties don't come on a freight invoice; they come from finance and from the statutory portals.

What's in the full PDF

The full 56-page PDF includes: vertical-by-vertical breakdowns, the complete carrier scorecard data, the segmentation analysis between consolidated and stitched camps, and the methodology appendix with the full survey instrument.