IPC: “Postal sector on track for future growth”
The IPC Global Postal Industry Report’s Key Findings released today highlights a positive outlook for the postal industry for 2016. “Despite ongoing mail volume decline, industry revenue and profitability remain strong as postal operators focus on growth and efficiency initiatives,” said IPC.
Following the growth trend of 2015, revenue increased in the first half of 2016 (H1 2016) by 1.5%. At the business unit level in H1 2016, revenue returned to growth on average for mail (0.5%) but slowed for parcels (2.8%) compared to the same period in 2015 (7.1%). Operating margins remained robust for both divisions.
Holger Winklbauer, CEO of IPC, commented: “As e-commerce continues to be the most important growth driver in parcels and as tech-savvy consumers require transparent, fast, cheap and convenient deliveries, posts are facing a world of opportunity. Posts have diversified a lot and pursued growth in markets like parcel and express and financial services. Even if the share of mail in overall revenue is decreasing, it is still significant and remains a major focus of postal innovation and investment.”
Focusing on the parcels side of the business, Winklbauer continued: “The postal industry’s parcel volume more than doubled over the last decade, growing at a rate far above economic growth. Parcel volume growth in 2015 accelerated to 7.2% on average – more than double that of world GDP (3.1%). However, in line with the continuously increasing online sales, a large opportunity remains for postal operators.”
Click here to see a PDF of the IPC Global Postal Industry Report’s Key Findings, hosted on the IPC website.
