PCA sees improving box demand in latest earnings report

In its most recent earnings report released last week, Packaging Corp. of America (PCA) reported decreased net income as well as fewer corrugated shipments in the fourth quarter compared with record levels in 2024, however, CEO Mark W. Kowlzan and other members of PCA leadership say overall demand is improving.

“Our order book strengthened as the fourth quarter progressed and we’ve seen significantly improved demand throughout our customer base so far in January,” Kowlzan says in a news release accompanying PCA’s earnings report.

The company posted $1.1 billion in operating income for the full year, essentially flat with 2024, while full-year net income was $774.1 million in 2025 compared with $805.1 million last year. PCA’s packaging segment saw the most improvement, with sales for the year totaling $8.3 billion compared with $7.7 billion last year and $1.3 billion in operating income compared with $1.1 billion.

PCA President Tom Hassfurther said during the company’s earnings call Jan. 28 that export containerboard prices were flat in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, while export sales volume of containerboard was up 12,000 tons from the third quarter of 2025 and down 15,000 tons from the fourth quarter of 2024.

In PCA’s legacy business, corrugated shipments per day and in total were down 1.7 percent compared with last year’s record fourth quarter, when per-day shipments were up more than 9 percent over 2023.

“For the year, our corrugated shipments were essentially flat with 2024,” Hassfurther said. “Our order book strengthened in November and December, and though we were ultimately disappointed with December shipment volume, we’ve seen this strength reflected in January shipments so far. While our corrugated volume and mix ended up below our fourth quarter forecast, the underlying volume trends were positive heading into 2026.”

The company also provided an update on its ongoing integration of the acquired Greif assets from a deal completed in September 2025.

Across its system, PCA inventories were at the same level as at the end of the third quarter and, with the acquired Greif operations, up 84,000 tons from the beginning of the year, according to Kowlzan.

“Operational performance during the quarter was again strong across the entire mill system and corrugated system, and we managed costs extremely well throughout the company,” he said during the earnings call. We made good progress on the integration and improvement of the acquired Greif assets, with better reliability and performance at both mills and completion of key systems integration activities. We do not expect to take any additional outages at the mills until their annual maintenance outages later in the year, and we’ll operate the business at capacity.”

“The acquired plants had a very good quarter, outperforming our expectations and are also off to a strong start to the year,” Hassfurther added.

Overall, Kowlzan, Hassfurther and other PCA officials are reporting stronger demand and a more stable market environment at the start of 2026—a far cry from 2025, which was marked by continuously softening demand and facility closures, including a PCA containerboard mill.

“How does it feel for us? I mean, it feels improved; in fact, much improved,” Hassfurther said. “A lot of things were up in the air. We were already dealing with potential tariff stuff and all these other things that were question marks hanging in the air. Those are all pretty well cleared up at this point in time.

“There is a much more positive vibe across our entire customer base right now. The starts and stops we experienced last year were quite unusual, quite frankly, because I think everybody was trying to figure out what consumer demand really was. … So, it was an unusual year, in my opinion, and a lot of that’s now cleared out. And I think that’s helped the visibility going forward and I think it’s also helped the positivity going forward in terms of predictability.”

PCA’s entire fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings report can be found here.