Increasing material costs are causing problems for Swiss Post. In addition, the Corona boom in the parcel business is finally over.
Deutsche Post had a weak start to the year in its core business with letters and parcels in Germany. While sales in the Post & Parcel Germany division from January to March were 1.1 percent below the same period last year at 4.2 billion euros, the operating result fell by 61.1 percent to 138 million, as the logistician said on Wednesday Bonn announced.
The group justified this, among other things, with higher material costs in times of inflation and with costly preparations for the then threatening strike, which was then still averted. The corona-related parcel boom was a kind of special boom for Swiss Post for a long time, which is now over.
The global group only makes a fifth of its sales in its core business. Its earnings pearls are the express services, in which customers are guaranteed a delivery time, and freight. All areas of the group combined, Deutsche Post DHL generated sales of EUR 20.9 billion in the first quarter of 2023, 7.4 percent less than in the same period last year. The operating result (EBIT) fell by almost a quarter (24.1 percent) to around 1.6 billion euros. Net profit fell by a third to 911 million euros.
Analysts had expected worse values. Management confirmed the forecast for 2023 as a whole, in which Swiss Post expects profits to fall after the very good 2022 financial year given the downturn in the economy. In the first quarter of the year, the company developed according to plan, said the designated CEO Tobias Meyer. “Our measures are taking effect and we have continued to achieve a high level of sales and earnings.”
The Post presented its quarterly figures one day before the general meeting at which Meyer is to be appointed as the new boss on Thursday. The 47-year-old succeeds Frank Appel, who managed the group for 15 years. The 61-year-old wants to concentrate on his work as the head of the supervisory board at Deutsche Telekom.
Source: Stern
