Indian market leader Blue Dart Express suffered a drop in revenues and profits for 2009 but sawbetter business in the fourth quarter, encouraging hopes of a recovery this year.
The DHL Express subsidiary reported revenues of Rs 9,074 million (€143.3 million) last year,down 7.9% from Rs 9,794 million in 2008. The fall was largely due to lower fuel surcharges,according to the company. During the year 2009, Blue Dart handled 77.98 million shipments weighinga total of 267,533 tonnes. In 2008, it had handled 79.7 million shipments.
Pre-tax profits fell 27.6% to Rs 930 million (€14.7 million) last year from Rs 1,187 millionin 2008. Net profits declined by 27.3% to Rs 607 million (€9.6 million) from Rs 773 million.
In the fourth quarter, however, revenues increased 10.5% to Rs 2,535 million (€40 million).Pre-tax profits increased more than 50% to Rs 329 million (€5.2 million) and net profits were up70% from Rs 124 million to Rs 211 million (€3.3 million).
Anil Khanna, Managing Director, Blue Dart Express Ltd, said: “With signs of a recovery inmany industry verticals, the express industry is all set for new growth and expansion. Blue Dart iscompletely aligned to leverage these growth opportunities. In 2009, we have launched many newproducts and services that have received a tremendous response from our customers. Our plans areunderway to launch more of such customised products catering to specific customer requirements,” headded.
Blue Dart would continue to focus on customer needs, Khanna stressed. “We are proud to bepositioned as the only service provider with a distinctive capability to offer the entire gamut ofexpress distribution solutions. Our expertise in air is well supplemented by our groundcapabilities. Going forward our focus will be to maintain and consolidate our leadership positionin the air express products while strengthening our ground express offerings further. We arecommitted to providing our customers with superior service experience while meeting and exceedingtheir express distribution needs.”
