The price of a stamp in France will increase on Tuesday by 3 cents to 53 cents. The price of a stamp for delivery to Europe will become 55 cents. The last price increase was in June 2003 when the price was increased from 46 to 50 cents. This new increase should produce an additional 180 million euros in revenue for the mail division of La Poste which realised 10.6 billion in 2003
Read MorePeter Bakker, CEO of TPG NV, said he expects to hear from the Danish government within one month on the sale of a stake in the Danish postal operator.
TPG is among several bidders for the 25 pct stake in Post Danmark put up for sale by the Danish government.
TPG has also expressed interest in bidding for a stake in the Belgian postal operator. However, Bakker said he has had ‘no clear indications’ from the Belgian government yet on the timing of privatisation.
TPG is looking to expand into foreign postal markets in order to help offset declines in domestic mail volumes and increasing competition in the Netherlands.
Bakker was unphased by recent reports of 200-300 pct growth at Dutch rivals like Selekt Mail, a joint venture of Deutsche Post in Holland. According to TPG figures, its two main rivals have only a 2 pct share of Dutch mail volumes.
Read MoreOn 29 November 2004 Postwatch recommended to customers that they use 2nd class stamps at Christmas because the 1st class service performance had dipped significantly in the previous two years to less than 70 per cent delivered next working day. At the time we called upon Royal Mail to publish its Christmas performance levels so that customers would be able to make an informed purchase. Royal Mail has now published on its website performance figures for the 2004 Christmas period. In line with previous years these show that the 1st class performance over the Christmas period was 66.1 per cent delivered next day (compared with a target of 92.5 per cent). 2nd class performance was 93.9 per cent delivered within 3 days (compared with a target of 98.5 per cent). Commenting on Royal Mail’s Christmas performance, Peter Carr, Chairman of
Postwatch said: “The Royal Mail’s own performance statistics vindicate the
advice we gave customers. The value for money option at Christmas is to use
2nd class stamps at a saving of 7 pence per item.
TPG Q4 highlights include: express reaches 10% operating margin for the first time, logistics lifts margin to 4.1%, helped by standardisation programme, Wilson acquisition driving logistics revenue growth, integration is on track, higher growth in European Mail Networks and strong margin in Mail. The full year highlights include strong operating cashflow and net income growth and full year dividend lifted to 57 cents, up from 48 cents last year (subject to approval by the AGM.
Read MorePitney Bowes throws off lots of cash but hasn’t yet figured out what to do with it. Pitney Bowes generated USD879 million in cash on USD5 billion in sales last year, enough to hand back USD482 million to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks and run a USD317 million capital spending budget. It’s like that when you have a license to print money. Ever since Arthur Pitney and Walter Bowes convinced the U.S. postal authorities to authorize the then-novel idea of a prepaid-postage machine in 1920, Pitney Bowes has dominated the business. It built an empire around the ubiquitous postage meter, now selling customers USD4.2 billion a year in equipment, services and financing in addition to the USD840 million a year it takes in on rent (U.S. law requires meters to be leased, not sold). Yet the company now finds itself in a quandary any other businesses would kill for–how to spend all that cash.
Read MoreAt an official press conference today for the World Mail Express & Air Cargo Expo Abdulla Ibrahim Al Daboos, Director General of Emirates Post, told the press conference that diversifying into non-postal services helped the company to achieve earnings of around Dhs300 million for 2004, and that policy is now expected to boost revenue by 10 per cent this year. ‘In addition to traditional postal services, Emirates Post provides customers with retail, banking, airline ticket reservation and utility payment services,’ said Al Daboos. ‘We also offer a direct mail service providing access to up to four million addresses, while companies can use our integrated mailing service via the Electronic Document Centre, and later this year we will create a credit card personalisation service.’ Al Daboos said Emirates Post is ready to assist postal services in other Gulf countries with the launch of a number of products which it has already successfully introduced in the UAE.
Read MoreUnited Parcel Service Inc. has acknowledged that its highly touted package-flow technology isn’t flowing as smoothly as expected, with problems at about a third of the 300 or so centers where it has been implemented.
The package-flow software suite, a UPS initiative unveiled in October 2003, was developed in-house to help the company more efficiently plan deliveries made by its drivers in the U.S. At that time, UPS said it would deploy the technology at its 1,000 U.S. hubs by 2005 (see story). However, now it seems that full implementation won’t be achieved until the end of 2007, said UPS spokeswoman Donna Barrett.
Express and logistics company DHL was awarded a two-year contract by Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart) to manage the bank’s international document and parcel express shipments globally.
The multimillion contract underpins StanChart’s endorsement of DHL as the exclusive provider for the bank’s global express services covering documents and parcels from the bank’s worldwide offices to destinations around the world.
StanChart’s requirements will be overseen by DHL’s global customer solutions (GCS) division, which was established in January 2004 to provide a single point of contact across all markets for DHL’s top global customers. DHL has a long logistical experience in providing services to various multinational customers in the financial sector.
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