The week that was: 2 March 2012
Rounding up the biggest mail and express stories from the last seven days from the pages of Post&Parcel…
Deutsche Post investigated by German regulators
Deutsche Post sold off its final shares in Postbank and launched a new CRM service for small businesses this week.
The German postal giant was also drawn into a fresh investigation by regulators regarding its pricing policy, this time for bulk mail service unit Infopost.
The Federal Network Agency said there were complaints from rivals that Deutsche Post was using the service to provide below-cost delivery services for transactional mail.
Royal Mail chief faces questions over pricing
The chief executive of Royal Mail, Moya Greene, was met by a barrage of questions from MPs regarding her company’s plans for stamp prices under a proposed deregulation of the company’s postal rates.
The House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee repeatedly demanded that Greene reveal the thinking behind suggestions of a 53% increase in rates for Second Class stamps.
The hearing saw Greene revealing that to cover Royal Mail’s operating costs, mailers could face an 8-9% increase in rates, and then a 10-15% additional hike to provide the postal service with a commercial rate of return.
TNT Express share trading improves PostNL results
Talk of changes of leadership at TNT Express actually helped bolster share prices and thereby boosted PostNL’s financial results towards the end of the year.
The Dutch postal service recorded results for the full 2011 showing mail volumes declining at 7.2%, which was not quite as sharp a decline as feared, while higher TNT Express share prices saw a EUR 98m reversal of previous impacts of poor share trading performances.
During the fourth quarter, PostNL saw its underlying revenues down 4.1% compared to the same quarter in 2010 to EUR 1.17bn, and underlying operating income down 25% to EUR 99m. However, reported profit was up 24% for the quarter to EUR 161m.
USPS proposes mandatory move to Intelligent Mail
The US Postal Service is now phasing out its old POSTNET barcode system, as it prepares to make its new Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) tracking system standard across its network.
Mailers have been told that automation letters and flats will need to be using the basic IMb system from January 2013 to qualify for discounts. From the following year, the requirement will be raised for mailers to be on the IMb “Full Service” system to secure mail discounts.
And finally…
As it was revealed this week that Ireland will soon play host to a network of self-service parcel delivery terminals, Post&Parcel also spoke to one of Australia’s top businessmen, “The Apprentice” boss Mark Bouris, who now runs another company that sees parcel terminals as the answer to last mile issues in e-commerce parcel delivery…
