Austrian Post delivered more than 50 million parcels in 2009 increasing its year-on-year shippingvolumes by 20% despite the economic crisis.
Compared to the 41 million parcels delivered in 2008, the Austrian postal operator managed toincrease the number during the last year. Volumes grew particularly in the second half of the year,and increased 23% in the last quarter of 2009.
“Two main reasons for the success are certainly the agreement with the parcel operator Hermesand the successful path that we took with our premium products,” explained Carl-Gerold Mende, headof Austrian Post’s parcels logistics division. Since summer 2009, Austrian Post has been deliveringmail order parcels for Hermes to consumers.
The national postal operator managed to improve not only the number of shipments but also thequality of its delivery logistics. Despite the considerable increase in shipping volumes, transittimes have been improved to a record level.
“We clearly didn’t have to pay for the quantity increase with lower quality, far from it.Thanks to the commitment of the employees and the re-focussing of logistic processes, we were alsoable to achieve a record level for the average transit times. Compared to the whole year, we haveachieved the best figure since measuring started,” Mende explained.
During the peak pre-Christmas period in 2009, the company scored with its “Co2de Green”project among customers. Over 650,000 parcels were delivered through the CO2-free shipping servicewithout additional costs. “This way, the volume increase in December was not only profitable forus, but also the environment,” Mende added.
Separately, Austrian Post has taken over the customers of Redmail, a joint venture betweenTNT Post and Styria Media Group AG, after it pulled out of the Austrian mail market last month tofocus on the regional delivery of newspapers.
From 1 February onwards, Austrian Post will deliver Redmail’s addressed mail according to theexisting conditions stipulated by the current contracts. Non-addressed mail will be delivered byfeibra, a 100% subsidiary of Austrian Post. Redmail will only continue to deliver unaddressedshipments itself in the states of Carinthia and Styria. “We look forward to these new customers andwill do our best to bind them to our company in the long term as well,” said Walter Hitziger,Member of the Management Board, Mail Division at Austrian Post.
