DHL Parcel Germany expects double-digit volume growth for its pre-Christmas peak season thisyear thanks to a surge in online shopping by German consumers, CEO Andrej Busch told
CEP-Research.The domestic German parcels operator, which already increased volumes by 10.9% to 671 millionand revenues by 10.5% to €2,439 million over the first nine months of 2012, is also looking aheadconfidently to 2013 and beyond, he said. This year the Deutsche Post unit had low double-digitvolume and revenue growth in Q1 and Q2, and high single-digit growth in Q3, when it was partly hitby the insolvency of mail-order firm Neckermann, with e-commerce and B2C parcels its key growthdrivers.
“The parcels business already started excellently into the peak season in November. The volumeof delivered parcels for last month alone lies about 10% above last year’s level. Last year duringthe peak Christmas business in December DHL Parcel delivered about six million shipments daily andthis year as many as seven million parcels daily are expected,” Busch said. This would be a growthrate of about 16-17% for December.
DHL Parcel has taken on about 10,000 additional seasonal workers this year and securedadditional transport capacity to cope with these volumes. “For example, Deutsche Bahn will beoperating 62 special trains for Deutsche Post DHL this year,” he pointed out. DB operates ParcelIntercity trains for Deutsche Post to transport large volumes over long distances ready for localdistribution. In addition, DHL will deliver parcels nationwide on Sunday December 23.
Asked about general trends this year, Busch said: “It’s already clear that DHL has neverdelivered so many parcels as in 2012. This year we’ve done a lot to make e-commerce simpler andmore comfortable for the countless thousands of private recipients. We’ve introduced new serviceswith which the customer can flexibly decide at any time when and where he would like to receive hisparcel. We are currently testing whether and how private ‘parcel-boxes’ in rural area can helpparcels and goods to be received and collected simply. And finally, with our holding in the onlinefood retailer ‘allyouneed.de’, we have the opportunity to establish a completely new shoppingconcept in the market.”
In April, DHL Parcel Germany bundled all its services for private recipients and shippers in thenew website www.paket.de offering customers a ‘control cockpit’ for all theirparcels shipped with DHL. Key functionalities include customer selection of delivery dates andlocation and online parcel tracking.
Looking ahead, Busch declined to comment on volume expectations or price trends for 2013 butpredicted the German parcels market would grow in the 5-7% range annually up to 2020. “The maindriver is the e-commerce boom. In our opinion, the market share of online trade will rise from 7%of total consumption to up to 20%,” he declared. DHL Parcel is investing €750 million up to 2015 inexpanding its network capacity, especially in larger sorting centres, to cope with the expectedfuture volume growth.
In terms of general future trends, Busch predicted that parcel delivery will developdramatically compared to what is known today with more information-based choice for recipients.
“Consumers want more flexibility, influence and transparency,” he commented. “This will lead tomore options in the speed of deliveries. Certain products such as food will be delivered straightaway, other less urgent goods in the normal delivery time. The consumer will decide the time ofdelivery himself, the shipment’s status will be available in real time and consumers will be ableto get involved in the delivery process in order to steer shipments in terms of time and location,”he predicted.
