Norway Post’s operating revenues increased in the first half of this year. The revenue increase was due to growth in the logistics segment.
Norway Post’s first half-year operating revenues came to NOK 11 316 million, an increase of 1.9 per cent compared to last year. The operating profit before non-recurring items and write-downs was NOK 296 million, down from NOK 400 million last year. Norway Post’s Spinnaker profitability programme has had an accumulated effect of NOK 2.2 billion since 2008.
”So far, we’ve been very successful in reducing Norway Post’s costs, but have not quite managed to maintain our earnings due to the growth in salaries and costs during the first half-year,” says Dag Mejdell, the CEO of Norway Post.
Growth in the logistics segment
Fifty-seven per cent of the Norway Post Group’s revenues come from the logistics segment. Logistics revenues amounted to a total of NOK 6 973 million in the first half-year 2011, a rise of 5.6 per cent compared to the equivalent period last year. The increase in the number of parcels due to online shopping is an important reason for this, and Norway Post’s parcels volume increased by 4.7 per cent compared to last year.
“Parcels are an important growth area for Norway Post and an area we are focusing on in both Norway and the Nordic market,” says Mr Mejdell.
Mail volumes are continuing to fall. In the first half of this year, the volume of A and B mail fell by 8.7 per cent compared to the same period last year, while the volume of unaddressed advertising mail remained the same. Price increases and changes in the product mix partly compensated for the lower volume.
In order to take part in electronic developments, Norway Post launched a digital mailbox – Digipost – during the first half-year. Digipost already has just over 150 000 users, and more and more customers that send out mail are now signing a Digipost contract.
”We’ve managed to recruit many Digipost users. Now we’re making greater efforts to increase our number of senders – i.e. companies that want to start using Digipost to send mail to their customers,” says Mr Mejdell.
Good HSE results
The Norway Post Group is this year seeing good results of its long-term, systematic focus on HSE. During the last 12-month period, the sickness absence rate was 7.5 per cent, a reduction of 0.5 percentage points compared to last year – and the rate has fallen by almost 4 percentage points over the past few years.
“Reducing the sickness absence rate has been an important focus area for both Norway Post and society at large. We’re proud of the good results we have achieved, but are still not satisfied,” says Mr Mejdell.
The overnight delivery quality of A-mail was 86 per cent during the first half-year, an improvement of 4.2 percentage points compared to the first half of 2010. The reason for this significant improvement was that the overnight delivery quality last year was affected by the start-up of the new South-East Norway sorting terminal at Lørenskog, outside Oslo.