France's Mondial Relay joins Hermes' European parcel network
German parcels company, Hermes Logistik, has further strengthened its growing European network by forming a partnership with France’s Mondial Relay for deliveries and collections in France, Germany and Austria.
Home delivery specialist Mondial, like Hermes a subsidiary of Europe’s largest mail-order business, the Otto Group, says it will also be expanding its consumer service through Relai pick-up points in four new countries – Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain – and hopes to have opened over 20,000 such points in the seven countries (including France) by the end of this year.
The expansion will see Mondial’s parcels volumes grow by about 20% in two years from the 34 million handled in 2006, the company said in a release.
According to an article in the Handelsblatt newspaper this week, Otto is working towards a single brand European B2C parcels network led by Hermes, with the aim of boosting the German subsidiary’s turnover to between EUR 1.5 billion and 1.8 billion from the current EUR 1 billion.
The network is designed to cash in on the Internet home delivery boom in major markets such as Germany, France and the UK. Parcelnet, the UK home delivery company owned by the Otto Group, announced two months ago that it also was expanding by buying the Redcats courier network in the UK.
Hermes, which grew by 11.5% in 2006, is moving into the Austrian market this summer. It now has 13,500 distribution points in Germany and a further 1,200 lined up for Austria.
