bpost Q4 results boosted by strong Parcels performance

bpost has reported “an excellent fourth quarter (Q4) 2015”, with revenues of €642.9m. The group said that the positive results were “thanks to better Domestic Mail trend and strong Parcels performance, despite lower SGEI compensation and curtailment of International Mail since the first quarter of 2015”.

Domestic mail volumes continued to decline – but at a slower rate (-3.9% in Q4, compared to -5.4% for the first 9 months) and bpost said that this was down to a better performance in Transactional and Advertising Mail. The full year underlying domestic mail volume decline came in at -5.0%.

The Domestic Parcels business, added bpost, saw an “excellent” growth in volumes growth of 13.9% in Q4 (12.6% for the full year), “driven by e-commerce, positive evolution from catalogue sellers, C2C and particularly strong December at +15.7%”.

The International Parcels business was up €6.4m in Q4, which bpost said was mainly driven by lanes from the US, supported by peaking December sales and positive FX contribution.

bpost’s normalized net profit for the full year was €303.6m.

Koen Van Gerven, bpost’s CEO, said: “The excellent results recorded in the fourth quarter prove once again that the disciplined execution of our strategy continues to bear its fruits. Our parcels activities developed very strongly, especially during the end of year season. Our productivity improvements plans are still on track and continued to deliver while we also benefitted from an improved domestic mail trend.”