Norway Post’s business and geographical expansion along with cost savings paid off last year togenerate higher profits.
The postal group increased underlying profits by 6.1 per cent to NOK 1,116 million (€150million) despite flat revenues of NOK 22,924 million (€3,090 million). In the October-Decemberfourth quarter, however, underlying profits dropped back to NOK 397 million on stable revenues ofNOK 6,124 million.
“This is the fifth consecutive year we have reported growth in earnings, thanks to theimplementation of significant cost reductions at the same time as we have been successful in themarket. It has been a good year for Norway Post,” said Dag Mejdell, President and CEO of NorwayPost.
In the Mail segment, revenue dropped slightly to NOK 10,409 million due to falling volumes inboth addressed (-8.2 per cent) and unaddressed mail.
The company is continuing to restructure the mail retail network by converting post officesinto partner outlets. In the next two years 170 Post in Shops outlets will be opened to improveavailability for people who are purchasing items online. This will leave just 30 full-service postoffices in the country.
“This is part of our systematic efforts to improve and become more efficient. In total ourimprovement programmes have contributed more than NOK 3 billion in lasting improvements since2008,” Mejdell explained.
“We have been successful at reducing our costs, but we must also increase our revenue. Thatis why we have established a separate division for e-commerce – the first postal company to do so.We are preparing ourselves to be the preferred supplier for both recipients and senders. Thismarket is growing 15 per cent annually,” he added.
In the Logistics segment, the acquisition of logistics companies contributed to low revenuegrowth to NOK 14,317 million last year. Parcel volumes declined by 3 per cent with a domesticdecline outweighing growth in cross-border volumes. Operating conditions remained difficult inNorway, Sweden and Denmark, the company noted. However, the division’s earnings improvedsignificantly to NOK 627 million.
Looking ahead, Norway Post stressed that it aims to grow in the Nordic region. The Group’soperations outside of Norway had combined operating revenues of NOK 6,434 million in 2012, which isthe same level as in 2011. “Almost every third krone that we earn comes from operations outsideNorway. We want to strengthen our position in Sweden and will continue to grow there,” saidMejdell.
In 2012 the Logistics segment was re-organised by country, partly to be better prepared forgrowth outside of Norway. There are now two business units: Logistics Norway and Logistics Nordics.The Swedish transport company, Ekdahls Åkeri, was acquired in the fourth quarter and is now beingintegrated into Bring in Sweden as a step towards building a domestic goods network.
