Leading British media distribution company Connect Group is growing solidly this year thanks to a 20% revenue increase at its newly-acquired parcels business Tuffnells and expansion of its ‘click & collect’ parcel shop network to 2,400 outlets in cooperation with Amazon.
Connect Group, the largest newspaper and magazine distributor in the UK with annual revenues of £1.8 billion, increased its revenues by 3.1% in the 44 weeks to July 7, according to a recent trading update. Revenues for the first half of its financial year, which runs to August 31, had shown a low 1.2% increase.
Connect Parcel Freight, the division based around Tuffnells Parcels Express, increased revenues by 20.6% in the 44-week period, which is ahead of management expectations and driven by market growth and new customers, the group stated. Planned operational synergies remain on track.
The group acquired Tuffnells, a specialist in next-day B2B deliveries of mixed freight and parcel consignments throughout the UK, for almost £130 million last November. Tufnells delivers some 10 million parcels a year and had revenues of £143.6 million in 2014.
The Connect News & Media division had a 3.4% revenue drop but its Smiths News unit continued to expand its ‘Pass My Parcel’ network of parcel shops. “Pass my Parcel recruitment continues as planned with over 2,400 parcel shops recruited to date, up from c.700 at the time of interim results in April and keeping us on track to achieve our ambition of c.3,000 by the financial year end,” the group stated.
The ‘click & collect’ network, launched last October, uses independent newsagents and convenience stores as shop-in-shop parcel points. Parcels are delivered twice-daily from the Smiths News regional distribution centres to these retail outlets as part of the regular distribution of newspapers and magazines.
Amazon UK launched a same-day delivery service using this network last autumn. In addition, Connect Group has started to make home deliveries for the e-commerce giant in several British cities on a trial basis.
