Integer.pl Group in bid for Amazon-style growth as sales soar 77%
Parcel locker terminal provider and Polish postal operator Integer.pl Group is taking inspiration from US e-commerce giant Amazon in chasing long-term growth rather than short-term profit gains. The company has just seen its revenues swell by 76.6% in the first half of the year.
The company behind the “easyPack” parcel locker systems achieved sales of PLN 272.85 (EUR 65m) in the first six months of 2014.
However, pre-tax earnings (EBIT) were a more modest PLN 5.43m (EUR 1.3m) during the half.
The company said the growth in its business came on the back of intensifying its activities abroad, with its parcel locker terminals reaching Asia, Africa, the Middle East and North America.
Within Poland, the company’s InPost business has also been expanding its postal infrastructure “significantly”, particularly strengthening services like registered mail and efforts to transform the delivery of some formal and legal letters to digital form.
Rafał Brzoska, the Integer.pl Group chief executive, said the performance of his company was as expected, a consequence of the “huge” investment in the easyPack project.
He said the ambitions of his company were to follow a model similar to the US e-commerce giant Amazon, and continually invest in the development of the company, rather than focusing on a short-term profit gain.
“Long-term”
“In the second quarter, the American giant increased its sales by 23% compared to the same period last year, recording at the same time a record loss, which amounted to as much as $126m,” he said.
“We are also aiming at long-term benefits, and have therefore accelerated the expansion of easyPack and InPost around the world.”
Brzoska particularly highlighted the expansion of the easyPack machines into key e-commerce markets in Western Europe, with the company planning to have 2,000 machines in place in Italy by the end of 2015, 2,500 in France within two years and 1,500 machines in the UK by the end of this year.
“I stress, however, that the European project is just a stage in our international offensive,” he added.
Integer.pl Group closed a new investment round in the second quarter of the year, raising PLN 222m (EUR 52.9m) from Polish and foreign investors to further fuel the expansion of its easyPack business around the world.
Bonds to the value of PLN 30m (EUR 7.2m) have been issued this summer to further boost the company’s war chest.
Brzoska said increasing his company’s capital was necessarily for accelerating the growth of the easyPack business even further. Integer.pl Group is pursuing another large investment partner for a minority stake in its easyPack project, but its CEO said there would be no further shares issued this year.
