Singapore Post ups profits prior to liberalisation
Singapore Post has unveiled higher profits for the third quarter and the first nine months of its 2006/07 business year. The profitable company faces full competition in its lucrative domestic market within the next few months.
The Asian postal operator announced that its Q3 net profit increased 3.9% to USD34.2 million (euro17.2 million). Its operating profit improved by 6% to USD43.3 million on revenues up 3.5% to USD111.8 million.
Over the first nine months ending December 31, 2006, SingPost improved its net profit by 9.4% to USD101.6 million. The operating profit rose by 11.8% to USD127 million, while revenues were up 5.1% to USD323.4 million.
SingPost said that its mail business increased both operating profit and revenue in the third quarter, while logistics revenues benefits from higher contributions from Speedpost, the international express services operated in a joint venture with DHL Express. Cost reductions measures also generated profit growth.
Lau Boon Tuan, Group CEO of SingPost, commented: “In the third quarter, we further leveraged our retail network for growth, collaborating with our business partners to offer more value-added services and products including PostREALTY service and unit trusts.
“We also continued to explore opportunities for expansion in the region, focusing on our core competencies. In this connection, we signed a collaboration agreement with Pos Indonesia to explore working on four areas namely channeling services, remittances, logistics and direct mail.” Hybrid mail operations, under subsidiary DataPost, are already operating in Malaysia and the Philippines. SingPost recently expanded its facility in Malaysia and is looking to set up similar facilities in two other regional markets.
SingPost said it is confident that it is well-positioned to compete after the expiry of its monopoly in the basic mail services market on March 31, 2007, and had already diversified its business considerably. Lau Boon Tuan said: “We have been making good progress in our efforts to not only grow our core business and leverage our retail network, but also extend our core competencies and businesses into the region. We will continue to look for opportunities for expansion.”
