Yamato Transport’s 1st-half net profit jumps 2.5-fold
Japan’s largest parcel delivery service company Yamato Transport Co. said Tuesday its group net profit in April-September soared 2.58 times from a year before to 16,569 million yen.
The brisk result in the first six months of fiscal 2004 was attributable to sales growth and pension-related gains, Yamato Transport officials said.
The company saw an increase in costs to beef up its services to survive competition with Japan Post, a public corporation. But it could reduce costs in many other segments, the officials said.
Yamato Transport is now in a court battle with Japan Post over the postal service corporation’s tie-up with major convenience store chain Lawson Inc. in the parcel delivery market. Yamato Transport’s six-month group sales rose 6.1 pct year on year to 513,931 million yen as the company’s efforts to meet customer needs paid off. As part of such efforts, the company started an e-mail service to inform customers of the parcel delivery time.
The company kept unchanged its group earnings estimates for the year to next March. Net profit is estimated at 33 billion yen, down 33.7 pct from the previous year. Sales are projected up 4.8 pct at 1.06 trillion yen.
