Royal Mail profits smashed by competition and Facebook

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/city-news/ ... -23202000/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ROYAL Mail warned of thousands more job cuts yesterday after revealing its letters business lost £120million last year.

New boss Moya Greene admitted the firm was “balance sheet insolvent” and only being kept afloat by cash from the Government.

Greene was paid £637,000 for her first nine months, including a £142,000 bonus and £147,000 to relocate from Canada.

Brian Scott, of the Unite union, which represents managers, branded this “excessive reward for failure”.

Greene ducked suggestions up to 40,000 jobs – one in four of the workforce – would go but admitted the business would be “much smaller” in future as the nation’s mailbag shrinks.

The £2m-a-week loss, the worst for seven years, compared with a £20m profit the previous year. Post Office profits fell from £33m to £21m in the year to April.

Its business is being savaged by the explosion in text messaging, email and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

It is also losing out as firms such as BT and Sky offer customers cash incentives to manage their accounts online, ending the need for postal bills.

Greene also attacked “wrong-headed” regulation forcing Royal Mail to deliver post for rivals such as TNT at a loss. She claimed this “punitive” regime had seen £1bn of revenue transferred to rivals and cost it £160m.

The company has already outlined plans to close 16 mail centres and unions fear that the total could eventually be slashed in half, leaving just 30. Thousands more jobs will go due to high-tech sorting in delivery offices.

While the CWU accepts modernisation will mean fewer jobs it warned “continuing to use the workforce as a political football would inevitably lead to strike action”.

Dave Ward, CWU deputy leader, said: “Developments including a new business plan linked to further job losses and privatisation are at odds with the vision of modernisation agreed with the company last year.

“If Royal Mail and the Government press on regardless, the prospect of industrial action is looming.”

Greene is striving hard – and with some success – to work more closely with unions but 5,500 workers still left the business last year.

In the tough economic climate, finding voluntary redundancies will get harder and the CWU has vowed to fight compulsory job losses.

[demon]

nowt to do with the competition or facebook you fooking load of dickheads :dcfo :dcfo :dcfo :dcfo

[DGP1]

nowt to do with the competition or facebook you fooking load of dickheads :dcfo :dcfo :dcfo :dcfo

It is a bit to do with the competition, afterall would any other company do the competitors work for less than cost???

[fishtank]

Facebook though?
None of your "friends" on facebook are real and even if they were would i really have sent them a letter
that said "fishtank "liked" DGP's post".

[DGP1]

Facebook though?
None of your "friends" on facebook are real and even if they were would i really have sent them a letter
that said "fishtank "liked" DGP's post".

I know, at least I think you called it 'post' last night

[axeman]

Oh dear forgot to write a letter to tell everyone i'd be home late today so don't put my food on normal time..... txt/e=mail is hardly killing revenue but these twa*s within government and royal fail obviously 'have started to belive' there own hype and spin but anyone with the sense they were born with can see right through the bullshi*

[chunk]

you all hit the nail on the head! email is extra communication that doesnt replace paper.
The "ill meet you in the pub later" text might replace a phone call but it was never a letter.

[DGP1]

you all hit the nail on the head! email is extra communication that doesnt replace paper.
The "ill meet you in the pub later" text might replace a phone call but it was never a letter.

You're sooooo wrong, I'm now waiting for Amazon to send my new book through the net but they must have a problem because it isin't here yet

[chunk]

you all hit the nail on the head! email is extra communication that doesnt replace paper.
The "ill meet you in the pub later" text might replace a phone call but it was never a letter.

You're sooooo wrong, I'm now waiting for Amazon to send my new book through the net but they must have a problem because it isin't here yet

You had me there for a moment.

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

you all hit the nail on the head! email is extra communication that doesnt replace paper.
The "ill meet you in the pub later" text might replace a phone call but it was never a letter.

You're sooooo wrong, I'm now waiting for Amazon to send my new book through the net but they must have a problem because it isin't here yet

Kindle e-book sales recently overtook paperback sales, don't you know?

[Spedley]

Excluding packets (which have at least doubled in the last few years) only 1 in 5 letters I deliver is not mailsort/DSA. Of those 20% only about 5% actually have stamps on.

Our losses are nothing to do with thanking granny for your birthday present but us grinding our arses in the final mile for other companies.

Somebody needs a slap!

[chunk]

you all hit the nail on the head! email is extra communication that doesnt replace paper.
The "ill meet you in the pub later" text might replace a phone call but it was never a letter.

You're sooooo wrong, I'm now waiting for Amazon to send my new book through the net but they must have a problem because it isin't here yet

Kindle e-book sales recently overtook paperback sales, don't you know?

I love statistics...
I can get 40,000 tracks on my ipod 160gb.....
and like most of my friends i have way more music on it than ill ever have time to listen to!
why? because the download cost is still measured in pence per track. i can download a hundred tracks for a price
that wouldn't have bought me half a dozen discs or vinyl if you go back a bit further..
that said. people still like to buy cds from their music store.

You should know where im going at this point but ill break it down for you.
much more important to know if paperback sales have fallen and by how much.
are kindle sales replacing paperbacks? or in an analogy with my i pod do they contain 100 unread books.

when people started listening to music on roller skates through headphones it didnt spell the death of the home hifi
just an extra opportunity to listen to music.

[DGP1]

I don't have a kindle, I still prefer a hard copy that I actually own and can't be taken off me if someone decides they want to (same goes with downloading music, it's cds for me all the way).

Still, the amount of DSA I deliver is a big reason why profits have appeared to have fallen (even seen the scam letters today that Citipost have poached from TNT).

[b780771]

Excluding packets (which have at least doubled in the last few years) only 1 in 5 letters I deliver is not mailsort/DSA. Of those 20% only about 5% actually have stamps on.

Our losses are nothing to do with thanking granny for your birthday present but us grinding our arses in the final mile for other companies.

Hear hear! That's why the M6 is chocca with Business Post & TNT artics but the railways(who might have handled some of the traffic if the RM still had it) hardly carry any of the mail they used to.

The thing that happened to the railways freight traffic from 60 years ago onwards has been allowed to happen to the Royal Mail.The railways used to have the lions share of the freight-then the truckers creamed off the bits they wanted & left the railways with the cr@p-until the trailways no longer had to take the cr@p either.If the RM will only have the cr@p(a birthday card to someones granny in Achiltibuie)from start to finish & the 'final mile' for everyone else the future can't look good for a postie!