Tag: North America

Mail posts gloomy forecast

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

Royal Mail profits fell by a third in the 2006-7 financial year, mainly as a result of a sharp rise in pension fund costs.

The group faces operating at around break-even this year and next, it said.

Chairman Allan Leighton and chief executive Adam Crozier said pension costs, revenue decline through losses to competition and the overall fall in mail volumes meant Royal Mail’s letters division was heading towards break-even in the current financial year.

They added: “Without the contribution from GLS (General Logistics Systems, the group’s European parcels business), the group could again become loss-making.”

The group said profits for 2006-07 were in line with expectations at £233m, down a third, mainly due to pension costs rising by GBP 193m to GBP 722m.

Competition had developed much more quickly than anyone forecast. Rivals would this year be handling around 4bn letters, around one in every five posted – a level Postcomm had forecast would not be reached until 2010.

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Online, Newspaper Audiences Up, But Revenue Growth Slows

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

Roughly 59.6 million people visited newspaper Web sites in July, according to new figures from the Newspaper Association of America. That’s 37.1 pct of all active Internet users in the U.S., and the number represents a 9 pct increase over the same month in 2006.

In fact, it’s the second-largest monthly audience on record since 2004, when NAA started tracking Web audiences. (The top spot is held by May of this year, when NAA reported 60.3 million visitors.)

This good news for newspapers comes alongside a new report on the total print and online “footprint” of newspapers, based on analysis of Scarborough data, which found that 77 pct of adults read a newspaper in print or online every week during the third quarter. The duration of online visits is also on the upswing, with users spending an average of 43 minutes per month on newspaper Web sites during the third quarter of 2007, versus 40 minutes in the same period last year.

The historic and current figures are all available in the Newspaper Audience Database or NAdbase report produced by the NAA, which contains other data detailing newspaper readership, including the following statistics: 85 pct of individuals from households with annual incomes over USD 100,000 read a newspaper in print or online each week; so do 84 pct of college graduates. Also, 82 pct of individuals who bought something online in the last year.

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US Postal Service halts vehicle buys

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

When it comes to procuring alternative fuel vehicles, the U.S. Postal Service leads the way. Its alternative fuel fleet — nearly 38,000 vehicles that run on ethanol, compressed natural gas or other nonpetroleum products — is the largest of any employer nationwide.

The Postal Service won’t be purchasing any vehicles — gasoline-powered or otherwise — until 2015 at the earliest, said Walt O’Tormey, the agency’s vice president of engineering.

Most of the agency’s alternative fuel vehicles run on E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. There is strong support in Congress for increasing the use of E-85 nationwide, but the fuel has several limitations that are only now beginning to emerge.

The Postal Service is not covered under a January executive order that requires executive branch agencies to reduce their gasoline consumption by 2 percent annually and increase their use of alternative fuels by 10 percent a year. However, the agency is taking several steps to reduce its fuel consumption, including consolidating delivery routes, promoting ethanol usage where it is cost neutral, and using vehicles more efficiently, a spokesman said.

Because the Postal Service has such a large fleet — more than 210,000 vehicles — the infrastructure must be in place before the agency can move wholesale to alternative fuel vehicles. That means parts suppliers and mechanics, in addition to fueling stations.
O’Tormey recalled one instance in which the company supplying batteries for a vehicle the Postal Service was testing closed up shop.

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FedEx & UPS give peak day package forecasts

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

FedEx expects 11.3 million packages to move through its FedEx Express and FedEx Ground networks on Dec 17, compared with an average daily volume of 7 million packages, the company said in a press release.

Last year, FedEx predicted 9.8 million packages would pass through its network on its peak day.

Spokesman Howard Clabo said last year’s figure did not include FedEx SmartPost packages — a lower cost service in which packages are dropped off at the nearest post office and then taken the last few miles to customers by the U.S. Postal Service.

Excluding SmartPost packages from this year’s prediction, the comparable forecast would be 10.4 million, a gain of 6.1 percent.

UPS spokesman Norman Black said the Atlanta-based company expects package volumes in its network to reach 22 million on its peak day on Dec. 19.

On average day the world’s largest package delivery company moves around 15 million packages through its network.

Company officials said in early 2007 that during the 2006 peak season the company moved more than 22 million packages on three separate days.

Both companies have warned recently that slowing U.S. economic growth will have an impact on their business.

In September FedEx reported a 4 percent increase in fiscal first-quarter profit but warned that slower growth would act as a drag on earnings in coming quarters.

In a conference call with analysts last week after it also posted a 4 percent increase in quarterly net profit, UPS officials said the company still expects package growth in the crucial fourth quarter but added that growth would be slower than in the past four years.

As in previous years, online retail sales are expected to be a boost for both package delivery companies.

Retail consultant TNS Retail Forward predicted in September that fourth-quarter online sales this year would grow 20 percent to USD 42 billion from USD 35 billion in 2006.

Overall retail sales should grow by just 3.3 percent as the credit crunch is expected to hurt consumer confidence, TNS Retail Forward said.

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