French post office sets new parcels record

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France’s state post office has set a new record for the number of parcels it has handled in a single day in the run-up to Christmas.

Last Wednesday (18 December) its units, Coliposte and Chronopost, shipped more than three million parcels, beating the record set only the previous day of 2.6 million parcels, La Poste’s new president, Philipe Wahl, revealed.

Volumes are being boosted by the booming B2C e-commerce business but La Poste is not seeing the benefit in its bottom line as the bargaining power of e- retailing groups and fierce competition from other operators, notably express distribution firms, is driving down parcel rates.

Amazon alone is now said to represent more than 15% of La Poste’s turnovr from parcels.

Between 2008 and 2012, the average growth in its annual parcel volumes was almost 9% but revenue generated from this activity has not kept pace.

Despite growth in volumes, backed by a good performance in the e-commerce market, ColiPoste’s revenue increase was limited to 1.4% last year to just over €1.55 billion.

In 2014, La Poste’s parcels and express volumes are expected to rise by 6% but operating income is likely to show a slight dip on the previous year.

The buoyant performance of the postal utility’s subsidiary in this segment, GeoPost, in recent years, has helped cushion the impact of dwindling letter volumes.

But the prospect of parcels becoming a lower margin activity would weigh heavily on La Poste’s financial outlook.