A profit before tax of DKK 603 million in the first half of 2004 leads Post Danmark to adjust its expectations up-wards
The Post Danmark Group has just released its Interim Report for the First Half of 2004. It shows a considerable improvement of results in the first half of 2004, when profit before tax was DKK 603 million against DKK 417 million in the first half of 2003.
Profit after tax was DKK 406 million in the first half of 2004, which is an improvement of DKK 121 million compared with the same period the year before.
– This is a satisfactory result, not least because it was achieved by an in-crease in revenue of approx. 5 per cent from the first half of 2003 to the first half of this year. After a minor annual decrease from the year 2000, it is particularly encouraging that in addition to higher revenue, as anti-cipated, from both unaddressed items and parcels, revenue also rose from the letter segment, says Helge Israelsen, CEO of Post Danmark.
Revenue totalled DKK 5,698 million in the first half of 2004, up DKK 268 million compared with the first half of 2003. Part of the increase is attributable to a number of special letter deliveries made for large-volume customers. Therefore, the same increase level cannot be main-tained in the second half-year.
Total operating expenses as well as depreciation and amortisation amounted to DKK 5,081 million in the first half of 2004, corresponding to an increase of DKK 84 million or approx. 1.7 per cent on the same pe-riod last year. The low increase level of operating expenses was main-tained as a result of among other things continued efficiency improvements and an almost 2 per cent reduction of the number of full-time employees from the first half of 2003 to the first half of 2004.
Overall, the positive development leads Post Danmark to adjust its ex-pectations for the 2004 financial year upwards.
– We now expect that profit before tax for the year 2004 as a whole will be considerably higher than in 2003, says Helge Israelsen.
