La Poste eyes potential expansion into household services
La Poste has expressed the desire to expand into providing home-related services, such as home insurance, maintenance, energy services and healthcare-related digital communications. The French national postal service has issued a consultation proposing the ability to select one or more partners with an expertise in these kind of activities.
The first stage of the consultation is only open to companies or groups of companies, but is open to both French and non-French firms. The deadline for applicants to express interest is 21st December.
La Poste said combining its expertise with those of partners would create a “skilled network”, allowing it to offer a comprehensive package of home services for the public.
The firm said it already provided a range of local services in private homes, through units like La Banque Postale, while its Docapost unit provides secure data services for “all major French companies”, and its Digiposte platform has 600,000 consumers signed up.
Making use of these assets, La Poste said it hoped to develop a viable economic model and, if all stages of consultation prove successful, could see a commercial launch in the first half of 2014.
“La Poste has unique assets that could boost this new market – its brand and the role as a trusted third party, its capacity for innovation, its network of post offices, its skills and promise to contact every home six days of the week, along with its expertise in the field of data exchange and existing experience in local services,” the company said.
La Poste is looking for new sources of revenue as its core mail business declines.
The company’s mail division saw a 1.9% drop in its revenues in the six months up to the end of June, with operating profit down 4%, compared to the first half of its 2011 year. Mail volumes have seen their year-on-year declines accelerating as customers move to digital alternatives, and because of the difficult economy in France.
