New Zealand Post reports “strong” interim results
New Zealand Post has reported underlying net profit after taxation (NPAT) of $14m for the six months to December 2016. These figures do not include Kiwibank.
The result for the postal services (mail, parcels and logistics) business, which excludes one-offs, is up $15m on the same period last year.
New Zealand Post’s Chief Executive Brian Roche said the improvement is “attributable to benefits flowing through from cost savings over the past three years, more efficient delivery of mail and parcels, and a 7.5% increase in parcel volumes over the six-month period”.
Roche also said he was “very encouraged” by the turnaround in the postal services business performance from a year ago.
“This is a strong first half result,” said Roche. “Given we face the same challenge every year of having to combat the $20-30 million in revenue we lose annually due to the decline in letters, we are pleased that our strategy is delivering and putting the postal services business further in the black.
“Online shopping continues to boom as more businesses embrace e-commerce. We are now in a better position to capture more of that growth. That is the major difference from where we were this time last year.”
Revenue for the period was $467m, down $46m from last year, and New Zealand Post said this was “attributable to foregone revenue from the sale of Converga in November 2015 and the decline of letter volumes, not fully offset by growth in the parcel business”.
New Zealand Post added that it launched the new parcel delivery options, Authority to Leave at home and Parcel Collect, and it saw “2m additional parcels processed in November and December, on the same previous period”.
