La Poste has released its H1-21 results with overall group revenue increasing by 16.3% to €16.9bn from €14.5bn in 2020. This growth has been attributed to the very strong momentum in e-commerce benefiting certain activities and the consolidation of new entities.
The revenue of the Services-Mail-Parcels business unit amounted to €6.5bn, up by 18.5%. The operating profit amounted to €187m, up from -€1.2bn at the end of June 2020.
Mail revenue amounted to €3.8bn, up by 10.4% compared to the end of June 2020. This change is partly due to a favourable comparable base due to the severe impact of the first lockdown imposed on account of the Covid-19 crisis in the first half of 2020 and to the pricing adjustment of 4.8% on average which took effect on January 1, 2021. The operating loss of the Mail business thus stands at -€31m compared to €1.2bn in 2020).
The Parcel (Colissimo) business generated revenue of €1.2bn (+26.8%), building on the dynamic trend in e-commerce fostered by the health crisis; the very strong growth in parcel volumes (+31.9% at equivalent working days) brought the number of items distributed to 265m. For Parcels, the good performance of the business led to a strong increase in operating profit of 79.9% to €175m, with its strengthened industrial network able to deal with the strong growth in volumes.
Taken as a whole, the Mail services subsidiaries recorded strong growth of €402m, an increase of 36.7%. Asendia, which provides cross-border logistics solutions in e-commerce, generated revenue of €1.0bn, a strong 38.6% increase buoyed by the excellent performances of its subsidiary eShopWorld and Asendia Logistics. Mediapost (advertising mail) generated revenue of €232m, up by 34.2% partly due to a favourable base effect, as the first half of 2020 saw a complete shutdown of the printed advertising activity during the first lockdown. Also of note is the buoyant activity of La Poste Silver, which achieved revenue of €100m, up by 13.2%. The operating profit of Subsidiaries stands at €44m, an increase of €51m on the same period in 2020.
GeoPost’s revenue rose to €6.2bn (up 22.0%). After restatement of the scope effect (-€8m) resulting from the sale of Tigers15 and the majority takeover of Speedy AD, and the foreign exchange effect (-€35m) mainly on the rouble and the Brazilian real, mainly due to the strong growth in volumes handled (+23.6%). Overall, GeoPost delivered 1.1bn parcels over the period, which it notes were unprecedented volumes. They were driven by the buoyant momentum in e-commerce favoured by the lockdowns and changing consumer habits. The B2C segment thus represented 59% of the volumes in the first half of 2021 (vs. 54% in the first half of 2020). Most countries saw growth in organic revenue (+29.3% in the United Kingdom, despite the drop in cross-border flows due to the implementation of Brexit on January 1, 2021, +22.5% inFrance16, +18.1% in Germany, +17.5% in Spain, +19.4% in Italy, +21.4% in Poland and +20.9% in Benelux). To be noted also the €57m increase in revenue for New Urban Services (new delivery methods), which totalled €86m.
GeoPost generated an operating profit of €533m, up sharply by 51.8% compared to the end of June 2020, driven by the momentum in e-commerce and accentuated by the effect of a comparable base impacted by the beginning of the health crisis.
Source: La Poste
