Russian Post increased revenues from sales of goods at its retail outlets by 19% to RUB 8.3 billion (€114.7 million) in the first half of 2016, signed a Memorandum of Intent with Toshiba to automate its postal and logistics system and simplified customs clearance of export shipments.
The company’s net profit from its retail business increased by 15% amounting to RUB 3 billion (€41.5 million) in H1 2016.
The strongest revenue growth was recorded in the "mail" category of goods, which are given a priority in the product range at post offices: the sales of office supplies almost doubled (+96%), book sales increased by 36% and periodic printed publications – by 23%. Sales of basic products which are popular at post offices in rural areas and small towns also showed good growth. Thus, sales from household products grew 31%, food and related products – by 25%.
It is worth noting that Russian Post showed in the past six months growth rates from its retail business that exceeded those of some retailers, without increasing the number of its sales outlets.
"The main challenge in the retail segment is to increase sales of our traditional product categories that people buy at the post office – printed publications, books, stationery. All of these product categories showed the strongest increase, suggesting that there is real demand for these products among the population, and the key challenge is how to organise sales in the best way,” Inessa Galaktionova, Deputy General Director of Russian Post, Postal Business, said.
To automate the sorting processes of mail and parcels, increase the efficiency of processing international shipments in Russia and the quality of postal service, Russian Post signed a Memorandum of Intent with Toshiba. The aim is to strengthen the strategic partnership and cooperation between the two companies.
Toshiba has acted as a system integrator and equipment supplier for the automation of logistics systems at Russian Post’s international logistics centre near Vnukovo airport in the Moscow region. Since the end of 2014, the company has been installing automated postal sorting systems at the facility and plans to finish the installation of a customs inspection system by the end of 2016.
Together with the Memorandum, Toshiba and Russian Post signed an additional agreement to the contract for the automation of the Vnukovo facility. The total amount of the contract, taking into account the additional agreement, is around €44 million.
The postal operator intends to build several high-tech logistics centres in different parts of the country, and Toshiba, as a proven partner for Russian Post, is ready to supply the necessary equipment thus increasing its presence in the Russian market.
Russian Post explained that with the growing e-commerce, the number of international shipments is constantly increasing and the renewed contract with Toshiba will increase the efficiency of handling mail and parcels at the logistics centre in Vnukovo.
"The installation of the Toshiba equipment in Moscow has helped us successfully cope with multiplied volumes of international shipments in 2014-2015 and significantly reduce the processing and delivery times to our customers,” Alexey Skatin, Deputy General Director Russian Post, Logistics, said. “We appreciate Toshiba’s contribution to improving the efficiency of our logistics infrastructure. The agreement will allow us to continue our cooperation modernising Russian Post's logistics, including the introduction of technology for improving exports abroad."
“Since the development of the world's first automatic sorting system for mail based on text-recognition technology, Toshiba has been supplying the equipment for the automation of postal and logistics processes to 20 countries, including Canada, Serbia, Brazil, Singapore and Australia,” Sadao Sekine, vice president of the Department Security and Automation at Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Company, a division of Toshiba Corporation, said. “As a system integrator, we aim to find for each client a customised solution that fits into the situation in the respective country. After signing the Memorandum with Russian Post, we will do our best to improve the efficiency of Russia's postal and logistics system, simultaneously increasing our market share in this industry."
To simplify customs clearance of international export shipments, Russian Post is testing a new technology in cooperation with the Federal Customs Service (FTS) making it possible to declare goods based on a single document (postal declaration CN 23) used by the Universal Postal Union (UPU).
Russian Post and the Federal Customs Service conducted a large-scale IT integration, improved the necessary software to enable electronic interaction with each other and to rapidly process information from the postal declaration for customs purposes.
During the testing phase, companies based in Moscow will be able to declare shipments with the new technology and by the end of this year, the service will be available for all exporting companies that implement the simplified taxation system.
"Our joint experiment with FCS allows to simplify export procedures, the application process and reduce the time of sending parcels. The convenience of the service for the customer is that it begins and ends at the post office and takes a few minutes. All work on declaring the items for export is provided by Russian Post and the customs. We expect that this solution will facilitate the access of Russian goods to the international markets,” Russian Post CEO Dmitry Strashnov said.
Currently, the growth of international shipments is increasing rapidly. In the first half of 2016, Russian Post processed 98.7 million international shipments with product enclosures which more than doubles the volumes in the first half of 2015 when 48.1 million international shipments were processed. Although the number of export items is not that high compared to import shipments, it increased by 40% during the first half of this year.
