SCHENECTADY, New York (Reuters) - United Parcel Service Inc , the world's largest package-delivery company, reported a 9.9 percent drop in profit that was milder than Wall Street had feared, though the company said it experienced a significant slowdown as the quarter came to an end.
UPS (UPS.NY) known for its brown delivery trucks, said on Thursday it expects profit per share for the year to come in "toward the lower end" of the $3.50 to $3.70 forecast it set in July.
"We anticipate a challenging environment for a number of quarters going forward," said Kurt Kuehn, the Atlanta-based company's chief financial officer, in a statement. "We believe the U.S. consumer will be very conservative with spending this year."
Third-quarter net income came to $970 million, or 96 cents a diluted share, compared with $1.08 billion, or $1.02 a share, a year earlier.
Wall Street analysts on average expected 89 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Revenue was up 7.4 percent.
UPS said it has cut its 2008 capital expenditure budget by $200 million to $2.8 billion and expects to reduce 2009 capital spending as well.
Like its main rival FedEx Corp
So far this year, UPS shares are down about 34 percent, a steeper drop than the 21 percent slide of the Dow Jones transportation index <.DJT>.
(Reporting by Scott Malone, editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Matthew Lewis)
