Slovenian Post is ready for liberalisation of the country’s postal market as a modernised,profitable company and is looking at growth opportunities at home and abroad, a senior manager told
CEP-Research.“The crisis has not affected us as much as we were expecting,” Marjan Osvald, internationalmail director, said in an interview at the recent PostEurop conference in Bled, Slovenia. Thepostal operator has grown in recent years to reach revenues of some €245 million and a net profitof €18.2 million in 2008. This year it expects to make a fairly stable profit of about €15 million,Osvald said.
With 6,700 employees, Slovenian Post operates 550 postal outlets and serves some 700,000households in the country, which has a population of just two million. It was split off from thecountry’s telecoms operator in 1995 and became a limited company in 2002. The company also has aminority stake in the country’s postal bank, which generates about 20% of its revenues.
The country’s postal market has developed well in recent years with growth in addressed mailand direct mail, Osvald said. “We are the market leader for letters, direct mail and domesticparcels,” he stated. The Slovenian letter post market was worth about €131 million in 2007, withsome 414 million domestic items, according to official statistics. The parcels and express marketwas estimated to be worth about €35 million (2006).
Slovenian Post, which now only retains a monopoly for items below 50g, feels confident aboutthe forthcoming full market opening in 2011, according to the international director. “We can livewith competition in future. But I do not think there will be a big change,” he said. The companyaims to promote direct mail and also develop hybrid mail as future growth businesses, he added.
In the parcels segment, there is growth both in domestic volumes due to e-commerce and ininternational volumes due to economic growth and more trading, Osvald explained. “Consumers arebuying more online, and there is growth in parcels from the USA and Asia,” he said. But there isstrong competition from GLS and DPD, which deliver the bulk of international parcels from the UKand France respectively, he noted.
Privatisation of the 100% state-owned company is not on the political agenda, Osvald said.But Slovenian Post is actively observing privatisation activities in the region, he added. “We arewaiting for privatisation in the region, and are in contact with Posts and authorities,” hedisclosed.
