La Poste’s express parcels division GeoPost today unveiled a bold re-branding as the ‘DPDgroup’to accelerate its growth ambitions in Europe and overseas focusing on B2C expansion and potential
acquisitions.The new commercial brand, featuring a modernised logo, will be introduced across all parcelbusinesses in 22 European countries (Austria, Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, France, Hungary,Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, UK,Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland) from today onwards, with all the rebrandingoperations to be carried out over a period of two to three years.
In parallel, French B2B parcels firm Exapaq will be re-named as ‘DPD France’. But Frenchexpress operator Chronopost, Spanish subsidiary SEUR and British franchise operation InterlinkExpress will retain their established names while adopting the DPDgroup visual branding. GeoPostwill retained as the name for the division’s holding and and separate freight forwardingactivities.
GeoPost president Paul-Marie Chavanne told journalists, including CEP-Research, at a briefing inParis that the new brand marked the culmination of the creation of a “unique” European hybridB2B/B2C parcels delivery network in recent years and would launch the next stage of the business’development. “We have worked for several years to create this quality network and we have reached apoint where the portfolio is now coherent. We want to celebrate this with a re-branding to give allour companies a new image,” he said.
Christian Emery, Chief Operating Officer Europe, said that the company would spend about €60million over the next three years introducing the new visual branding throughout the network whilethere would be a limited advertising campaign on French TV. He stressed that Chronopost, asFrance’s leading express operator, had a strong separate brand identity that the group did not wantto lose.
Explaining the group’s overall strategy, executives said the ambition of DPDgroup is to build onits strong position in the B2B market, to expand its B2C business and become a benchmark in thehome delivery market. The company aims to offer all European customers the best delivery serviceswhile also optimising processes and delivery costs.
The product portfolio will be further harmonised as well. The interactive delivery informationservice Predict will be expanded to offer a one-hour home delivery time-slot in 20 Europeancountries by summer 2015.
In addition, a further 6,000 Pickup parcel shops will be added this year, including in the UKand Spain, giving the alternative delivery network some 22,000 locations in 13 countries. Furtherexpansion to 26,000 locations is planned for 2016. In future, 95% of the population in these 13countries will be less than 15 minutes from a Pickup point.
Chavanne also highlighted GeoPost’s “very dynamic” results for 2014, with turnover up by 13.3%to €4.9 billion and a volume increase of 10.7% to 864 million parcels, which confirmed thedivision’s number two position in the European Courier Express and Parcels (CEP) market. GeoPost’sintra-European and international activity also increased strongly in 2014, with volume growth ofover 12%.
Business highlights last year included the acquisition of Polish courier company Siódemka,creating a market leader with annual sales exceeding €240 million, the takeover of Britishe-logistics provider WnDirect, and the alliance with Japan Post allowing GeoPost to strengthen itsposition in Asia to develop Asia-Europe traffic flows, particularly from e-commerce, and to ensuretheir delivery to European consumers.
