Tag: UPS

Concerns over Chinese postal law

Posted by | Sep 1, 2007 | |

China should improve transparency of a new law governing the country’s USD 6bn-a-year express delivery market, say executives at UPS, the package delivery group.

An updated version of China’s Postal Law, which was promulgated in 1986, is in its ninth version and has been a source of concern for foreign and domestic courier companies pitted against China Post, the incumbent.

US-based UPS, its international peers and upstart Chinese express companies are in the awkward position of having to “compete with our regulator”, Mike Eskew, UPS chairman and chief executive, said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Ken Torok, UPS Asia Pacific president, noted that transparency surrounding the law’s most recent drafts had deteriorated. There are concerns China could introduce a “universal tax” of 4 per cent on overseas entrants.

“We would look at that as a form of double taxation,” Mr Torok said. “We are just looking for a level playing field in the industry.”

Mr Torok contrasted the opacity of China’s new postal law with a more open process in India, which is also revising its antiquated regulatory regime and posts drafts on the internet.

“When they do that everyone has visibility,” Mr Torok said. “We’d like to see more of that [in China].”

Uncertainty also surrounds how China intends to “carve out the monopoly”. According to an earlier draft of the law, only China Post’s express delivery arm would be allowed to deliver parcels weighing less than 150g – a restriction of particular concern to the incumbent’s domestic competitors.

UPS currently does not accept packages of less than 2kg for delivery in China.

Last October, an increasingly vocal domestic lobby of state-owned and private courier companies that compete against China Post took issue with the proposed limit. The Conference of Asia Pacific Express Carriers – which represents UPS, DHL, Fedex and TNT – has also been critical of the drafting process.

Booz Allen Hamilton, a consultancy, estimates China’s express delivery market will reach USD 5.8bn this year and USD 7.4bn next, making it a coveted destination for international courier companies.

UPS was the first of the “big four” international couriers to wholly own its China operations, as allowed under the terms of the country’s accession agreement to the World Trade Organisation. The company bought out Sinotrans, its state-owned joint venture partner, for USD 100m in 2005.

It employs 4,500 people in China and is building an international hub in Shanghai. UPS is now applying for trucking and freight forwarding licences in China. But it must secure national, provincial and even municipal approvals.

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UPS board names Director

Posted by | Aug 29, 2007 | |

F. Duane Ackerman, the former Chairman and CEO of BellSouth, today was named to the Board of Directors of UPS.

Ackerman, 65, will serve on the board until the next UPS annual shareowners’ meeting in May 2008, at which time he is expected to stand for election to a regular one-year term. After his appointment today, Ackerman was named to the Compensation Committee during a regularly scheduled Board meeting here.

Ackerman, a native of Plant City, Fla., spent more than 40 years in the telecommunications industry before retiring in March following BellSouth’s merger with AT&T. Ackerman began his career in 1964 and in 1992, was named president and chief executive officer of BellSouth Telecommunications, BellSouth’s local telephone service unit and largest subsidiary. He was promoted to vice chairman and chief operating officer of the parent company on Jan. 1, 1995, then was elevated to the position of president and CEO of BellSouth on Jan. 1, 1997. A year later, he also became chairman.

Ackerman is a member of the Board of Directors of The Allstate Corp. and also serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He is a trustee of Rollins College and has served on the Board of Governors of the Society of Sloan Fellows of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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UPS and iShip Celebrating Anniversaries

Posted by | Aug 28, 2007 | |

UPS and its subsidiary iShip, two companies founded in the Seattle area, both are celebrating major anniversaries this year. UPS turns 100 today and iShip now is 10 years old.

iShip developed and supports Web-based technology used to process small package shipments at outlets of The UPS Store, Mail Boxes Etc., UPS Customer Centers and corporate customers nationwide.

Acquired by UPS in 2001, iShip “offers a reliable and scalable solution that can handle a great deal of shipping volume, especially during the peak shipping periods,” said Dave Barnes, UPS’s chief information officer. “It also provides customers complete visibility and greater control over shipping expenditures.”

iShip, Inc., provides Web-based shipping and manifesting solutions to more than 5,000 retail shipping centers and thousands of enterprise users nationwide. iShip’s customers use the software to ship tens of millions of packages annually. iShip’s suite of products is highly configurable and can be deployed as either single carrier or multi-carrier solutions, depending on the customer’s needs.

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UPS Celebrates it's 100-Year Anniversary

Posted by | Aug 28, 2007 | |

UPS Inc. celebrates it’s 100-year anniversary later this month, it now is the world’s largest shipping carrier – a USD 47 billion business with a fleet of trucks, an airline and operations in 200 countries.

Increasing competition for delivery of goods has meant the company has had to broaden its global reach and expand its business beyond small package delivery to shipping heavy freight and providing logistics services for companies.

But even as the Internet has made it easier to send, receive or download items electronically instead of paying a service to deliver them, the breaking down of trade barriers has given shippers like UPS overseas opportunities they haven’t had in the past.
the global economy.

These days, the U.S. small package delivery market has slowed along with the economy. As a result, UPS has been increasingly looking beyond U.S. borders for business, offering faster delivery to worldwide destinations. International growth has helped the company’s bottom line.

Last month, UPS reported a 4.1 percent rise in second-quarter earnings on a modest increase in sales. The company’s shares, on an adjusted basis, are up more than 14 percent over the last year.

A century from now, Chief Executive Mike Eskew expects that delivering small packages will still be an important part of the Atlanta-based company’s business, but he isn’t sure it will be the largest part. In 2001, the company expanded its services by acquiring the Mail Boxes Etc. chain. Most of the stores were later renamed The UPS Store.

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Deutsche Post rated second class

Posted by | Aug 28, 2007 | |

German mail operator Deutsche Post is not going to have a very happy new year in 2008 when the German postal sector is liberalized, say the analysts that downgraded the stock on Tuesday.

Although there have been efforts to delay the liberalization of Europe’s 88 billion euro (USD119.9 billion) mail market, which was pushed back to 2011 from 2009 in July, Germany is still on target to open up its national postal sector to competition at the start of next year.

“A delay to German mail liberalization (scheduled for 2008) now seems unlikely,” said Matthew Lloyd, analyst with Goldman Sachs. He told clients that Deutsche Post faced volume loss and margin erosion from increased competition, and downgraded the stock to “Sell” from “Buy.”

Shares in Deutsche Post fell 67 eurocents (91 cents), or 3.1 pct, to 20.82 euros (USD28.37) in Frankfurt. The stock finished bottom of the DAX index, which slid 28.52 points, or 0.4 pct , to 7,457.47.

Although Deutsche Post currently has over 90 pct market share in Germany, the threat to its business from outside competition has seen the company forecast a drop in earnings between 10 pct -20 pct in 2009.

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