PostNL has revealed that more than half of its revenue now comes from ecommerce in its Q1 results as it outlines new plans to capitalise on this growth through “innovative solutions” such as automation.
The Netherlands-based shipping giant said that revenue increased to €684 million, up 1% year-on-year.
Fifty-one percent of revenues related to ecommerce in the quarter, helping to offset the decline of addressed mail volumes by 9.8%. PostNL also created €12 million in cost savings.
In plans to capitalise on the growth, PostNL announced it would announce a number of new initiatives to improve its performance in ecommerce.
The company will aim for higher customer satisfaction through “innovative solutions, new services and improved digitised interaction with consumers.”
New services will include smart receiver options near homes, including safe-place deliveries. The company will also further digitise interaction with consumers to ensure more deliveries are successful.
It also said it will look to use smart yield management and focus on efficiency to improve the margin per parcel. 2021 will see PostNL open a small parcel sorting centre at a central location in the Netherlands which will be “highly” automated, allowing 24/7 sorting and reducing costs.
The company’s CEO Herna Verhagen said the ecommerce figure “evidenc(ed) the company’s transition”.
Verhagen said: “This year, we continue to build on a strong platform for further growth. Step by step we are realising our strategy of becoming the postal and e-commerce logistics company of choice for customers.
“We will stay focused on improving the operational leverage in Parcels and continue to have attention for the realisation of our cost savings plans in Mail in the Netherlands. We confirm our outlook for 2019.”
PostNL said it expects parcel volumes to grow by a compound annual growth rate of around 14% between 2018 and 2022.
