DHL Express France has recorded strong growth after refocusing on its international air expressactivities one year ago and expects this growth to continue.
The company said that it reinforced its leading position in the French market in 2010 with a 25%market share, 1% up compared to 2009. International export and import volumes increased by 10% and16% respectively supporting the recovery in international trade.
This year, the upward trend is continuing. For the first eight months of 2011, DHL Expressrecorded a 10% increase in export volumes and 21% growth in import shipments which is an indicatorfor further volume growth by the end of this year.
To boost this dynamic development, DHL Express France has adopted a new strategy focusing ongrowing its presence in emerging markets, supporting SMEs in exports and investing in networkoptimisation, service offering and brand image.
The exploitation of new markets plays an increasingly important role for the development ofFrench companies. Therefore, DHL France is providing services tailored to SMEs which represent 90%of the 82,000 French exporting companies and generate 40% of the export volumes. By supporting SMEsin their international trade and enabling them to export more and better, DHL Express is acting inline with the export support plan designed by the government.
To reinforce its competitive position, DHL Express France continues to invest in theoptimisation of the operations of its 42 agencies in the country equipping them with new sortingsystems. Since 2007, the company has invested €23 million in its sites, of which €8 million wasspent in 2011.
To improve its customer service, DHL Express France invested €1.6 million in professionaltraining for its 1,500 employees. The programme provides the certification as “Internationalspecialist in express transport”.
Florence Noblot, CEO of DHL Express France, commented: “Our strategy of focusing oninternational air express transportation as our historical activity paid off in 2010 allowing us tocontinue growing. The next stage will be conquering new markets, especially in the strategic sectorof SMEs, thanks to significant investments in our network and our fleet, but also in training aswell as DHL’s corporate identity. The positive results in the first half of 2011 show that we areon the right track.”
