The week that was: 11 May 2012
Rounding up the top stories of the week in the mail and express industry, as reported in Post&Parcel, including a change of plans for USPS, plus latest Deutsche Post, PostNL and Pitney Bowes results…
USPS rethinks model for rural post offices
The US Postal Service has abandoned plans to close up to 3,700 mostly rural post offices, in favour of a new strategy of reducing their operating hours.
US lawmakers gave the plans a cautious welcome, praising the protection of rural postal access, but pointing to the need for further action to return USPS to profitability.
And, USPS this week revealed its latest results, showing losses worsening though some positive developments in operational aspects.
TNT share rally boosts PostNL results
PostNL revealed its big windfall from the UPS offer for its 30% stake in TNT Express, even though the sale is not expected to go through until the third quarter of this year.
The Dutch postal service issued its results for the first quarter of calendar year 2012 showing that its profits are up more than 400% thanks to the considerable increase in the TNT share price that UPS’s offer has caused.
Excluding the TNT shares, PostNL said its profits for the quarter increased 1.4% to EUR 70m for the quarter, on a revenue of EUR 1.07bn that was 4.6% down on the same period in 2011.
Deutsche Post investing for growth
Deutsche Post DHL is on target and “positioned better than ever” to generate further growth, executives told shareholders at the firm’s AGM.
On the back of a “dynamic start” to 2012 as revealed in the firm’s latest results announcement, the German logistics giant said it is expecting to adapt to uncertain global economic conditions and build growth particularly in the world’s emerging markets and the domestic parcels market.
The company will be continuing its investment plans both at home and abroad, which include around EUR 420m in new mail sorting equipment by the end of 2012, the largest investment in new letter technology since building its German mail centres in the 1990s.
Facebook deal for Pitney Bowes
And, in a big week for company results, mail technology giant Pitney Bowes revealed with its results that it is stepping up its investment in the software and digital side of its business to accelerate development of services that go beyond physical mail.
The decision was announced as the company revealed latest results showing that its performance has been hit by weakness in the production mail side of its business. The first quarter of 2012 saw revenues down 5% on the same period last year, to $1.3bn.
As it revealed its results, Pitney Bowes also disclosed that is has won a multi-year contract with social media giant Facebook to provide locational intelligence tools.
And finally…
This week we also reported on the IPC’s latest benchmark report on the industry, which looks at the medium to long term future for postal transformation, and suggests reliability, rather than delivery speed ought to be the central priority for posts…
