DHL-owned Indian delivery company Blue Dart Express has raised its stake in its airline business from 49% to 70% to take greater control of its operations after improving results in the fourth quarter.
The company said in a stock exchange announcement yesterday that its board had decided to increase the holding in Blue Dart Aviation to 74% in total, and an additional 21% stake had been acquired, raising the current holding to 70%.
“Consequently, Blue Dart Aviation Limited becomes a subsidiary of the company with effect from June 22, 2015,” Blue Dart Express stated. The airline operates a fleet of six freighters flying between leading cities in India.
The move comes after Blue Dart, which is 75% owned by DHL, achieved double-digit revenue and profit growth in the fourth quarter ending March 2015. Revenues grew by 13.5% to Rs 5,710 million (€80m) while net profits showed similar growth of 13.4% to Rs 347 million (€4.9m) in the January – March 2015 quarter.
In the full year ending March 2015, the company increased revenues by 17% to Rs 22,684 million (€318m) but net profits rose only 1.9% to Rs 1268 million (€17.8m).
Blue Dart, which is now focusing more strongly on e-commerce as part of the overall Deutsche Post group strategy, generated good volume growth in the fiscal year. Domestic volume rose over 10% to 140 million shipments but international volumes slipped slightly to 895,000 shipments. In weight terms, the company shipped over 558,537 tonnes of documents and parcels across India and internationally through DHL, which was 8.8% more than the previous year.
Managing director Anil Khanna said: "The macroeconomic situation in the last 2-3 years has not been encouraging to support growth. Despite an adverse external situation and challenges, the company has been able to deliver a reasonable performance, aided by our clear focus on the e-commerce vertical, although the core verticals have not shown much traction."
He added: "We all have to work as one team to increase revenue, reduce cost and improve efficiency, productivity and service quality. We are an insanely customer centric and highly people focused company. The brand is our most critical asset. The "I love my Blue Dart" campaign will continue throughout the year to enable us to deliver superior brand experience. At the end of the day, we always bet on our people as part of our people first philosophy to make the brand stronger."
