Royal Mail Delivers Bigger Profit

[POSTMAN]

The Royal Mail has doubled its operating profit to £177m in the last six months, while the number of letters being delivered has fallen by five million a day.

The postal group said profits went up in the first half of the 2008/09 financial year despite a further fall in mail volumes.

Most mail deliveries are now hitting or exceeding targets, while the company said it was continuing to cut overheads by reducing computer and other costs.

But the average daily postbag has fallen to 79 million items, five million fewer than two years ago, the figures revealed.

Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton said: "These are good results that demonstrate that real progress has been made in what are clearly difficult economic circumstances.

"This strong performance has been delivered against a backdrop of falling mail volumes, increased competition, an unsatisfactory regulatory regime and the challenge of meeting the heavy demands of our pension scheme."

Royal Mail said it was particularly vulnerable to a downturn in the advertising market and noted that more customers were switching to advertising on the internet.

The pension deficit currently stands at £3.4bn but is due to be revalued next Spring when the Royal Mail expects it to increase "substantially".

A strong push to reduce overheads coupled with the growth in new products and services helped reverse a lengthy period of losses in the Post Office arm of the business.

Post Offices made an operating profit of £28m in the first half of the financial year compared with a £7m loss a year ago.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Busine ... 0415127211

[POSTMAN]

The Royal Mail doubled its profits to £177m in the first half of 2008/09 from a year ago, helped by cost cuts, but it is delivering fewer letters

The average daily postbag is now 79 million items. This is five million fewer letters than two years ago.

Chairman Allan Leighton said the results show that progress is being made in tough economic circumstances.

The postal group faces increased competition from commercial rivals and electronic communication.

Its competitors handle one in every three letters posted, it said.

The Universal Service - which allows letter writers to post letters anywhere in the UK for the same price - continues to be loss making, the group said.

It wants "fairer" regulation, arguing that it is difficult to change prices and introduce new products and services in the competitive business mail market.

The group is also struggling to cope with a rising pension burden

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7686826.stm

[POSTMAN]

[24601]

Well done all you super efficient managers !!!!

You're so clever and maybe deserve a big bonus for all your efforts and hard work

[rhino49]

Shouldn't there be a thankyou to the staff in there somewhere or was big Al too busy working out how much bonus he and Adam would be splitting between them?

BTW a couple of points - the 5 million less letters being delivered is being delivered by a proportionately fewer number of postal staff and whilst one in three items may be posted via the competition, I doubt that more than one in a thousand is being delivered by them !

And also, whilst there are fewer items delivered there is considerably more bulk - we now deliver more periodicals and catalogues and more packets (by postie as packets drivers duties haven't been increased) due to the internet trade

[Phantom]

I wish my walk would see a decrease in mail volumes, 2006 -7 bags a day compared to 2008 - 10 bags per day. Hmmmm I smell a rat too! So it is written so it is done.

Oh I forgot its different mail now, silly me a bit like the railways having the wrong snow on their tracks.

[silverback]

What they dont tell anyone is what percentage packets have increased by?
Royal Mails biggest growing part of the business