The week that was: 9 November, 2012
Summing up the biggest stories of the week on Post&Parcel, with Royal Mail closing mail processing facilities, Deutsche Post’s mail business under pressure and Belgians breaking into cars to deliver parcels…
Royal Mail closing mail centres, opening parcel centres
Royal Mail is closing three of its mail centres in the UK in light of declining letter volumes – while investing in new centres elsewhere to respond to parcel volume growth.
The company is to shutter sorting plants in Cambridge, Gloucester and Shrewsbury by early 2014, while it mounts a GBP 75m investment programme in its Parcelforce network, which will see the opening of new parcel centres in Lancashire, Cornwall and Hampshire as well as the expansion or relocation of nine other sites over the next few years.
This week Royal Mail also announced it was opening eight temporary parcel sorting centres from this week to help cope with surging parcel volumes during the run-up to Christmas.
DPD UK to create 1,500 jobs in £175m expansion plan
Parcel carrier DPD has announced a GBP 175m expansion plan in the UK which it says will create 1,500 new full-time jobs over the next few years.
The company owned by La Poste’s GeoPost Group is planning a new GBP 100m purpose-built parcel sorting hub for a site in the East Midlands.
DPD will also be investing to replace all its handheld devices used by drivers for route optimization and parcel administration.
EU requires “substantial concessions” to back UPS-TNT merger
We also reported this week on Europe’s top competition official saying “substantial concessions” will be required if the EU Commission is to approve the EUR 5.16bn takeover of TNT Express by rivals UPS.
Joaquin Almunia was speaking at a conference on competition policy and economics in Cernobbio, Italy, to defend the Commission’s record on allowing key business deals to go ahead.
But he said where his team found that a major merger would harm competition levels in a European market, action would be taken.
Mail business pulls down Deutsche Post profits in Q3
Increasing labour costs and declining letter volumes in the mail business have seen profits slipping slightly at Deutsche Post DHL during its third quarter of the year.
The German post and logistics giant released its latest results this week, showing group revenues up 5.7% during the three months to the end of September 2012, compared to the same period last year, to EUR 13.8bn. But net profit fell by a little less than 1% to EUR 385m for the quarter.
The weaker third quarter has nevertheless allowed Deutsche Post DHL to maintain a 5.8% growth in its EUR 40.9bn revenues over the nine months of the year to date, during which time net profits have increased by 13% compared to the same period last year, to EUR 1.1bn.
And finally…
A Belgian firm has struck upon a novel way to avoid missed parcel deliveries – break into peoples’ cars to drop off their packages. New-start company Cardrops believes smart technology can turn consumers’ own vehicles into temporary parcel terminals…
