The operating result (EBIT) fell by 12 percent year-on-year to EUR 91 million. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell by 2.7 percent to EUR 179.4 million. The result for the period fell from EUR 84.2 to 54.8 million, sales by 4 percent to EUR 1.21 billion.
With regard to the outlook, the partially state-owned, listed company said that sales would be as close as possible to that of the previous year of EUR 2.5 billion. The EBIT is still seen between the years 2021 (EUR 205 million) and 2020 (EUR 161 million). In a press release today, the Post announced price increases, and individual investments would be reviewed.
Personnel expenses amounted to EUR 571.8 million in the first half of 2022, which corresponds to a decrease of 2.7 percent. The Post Group employed an average of 27,144 people (full-time equivalents) in the first six months of 2022, compared to an average of 27,489 employees in the same period of the previous year (minus 1.3 percent).
High parcel flows in the previous year
Post AG referred today to a difficult market environment characterized by inflation and uncertainties on the energy market. The parcel volume is slightly behind the strong volumes of the previous year. In Austria, there was a five percent drop in revenue for Packerln, at the Turkish subsidiary Aras Cargo the drop was 20 percent, in Eastern and Southeastern Europe it was ten percent. Letter and advertising mail fell by 1.4 percent across the group. In contrast, there was a 49.3 percent increase in sales in the Branch & Bank business segment.
“The first half of 2022 was characterized by very challenging conditions for Austrian Post. (…) This background and the fact that there were exceptionally high parcel flows in the comparable quarters of the previous year made the start of 2022 difficult. ( …) It is to be expected that the difficult framework conditions will continue in the second half of the year,” said the group.
Source: Nachrichten
