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Bonn (dpa) - After a brilliant start to the year, Deutsche Post is setting itself even higher goals.
Instead of an operating profit of well over 5.6 billion euros, the group is now aiming for more than 6.7 billion euros this year.
CFO Melanie Kreis justified the optimism on Wednesday with the first quarter and the package boom in pandemic times: "It was by far our strongest first quarter of all time." The operating profit was 1.9 billion euros, more than three times as high as a year earlier. Sales grew by 22 percent to 18.9 billion euros. The bottom line was that the Bonn-based group earned 1.2 billion euros.
Business is booming in the home market of Germany as well.
The parcel volume in this country was according to the information in the first quarter 41.3 percent higher than a year ago.
However, Swiss Post is feeling the downside of the pandemic in Germany: the volume in the mail business, which is still very lucrative for it in the digital age despite declining volumes, fell by 9.5 percent - the minus was significantly more pronounced than in previous years.
The reason for this is the loss of advertising mail.
Traders are holding back with orders, also because their sales opportunities are limited in the pandemic.
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Overall, the consequences of the corona crisis are a growth driver for the group: people are ordering significantly more online than before, which means that DHL and its competitors Hermes and DPD have full order books.
But what if the pandemic is over and life has normalized?
A double-digit volume growth for parcels, as the Post has been recording since the second quarter of 2020 and thus since the pandemic had a full impact, will probably no longer occur.
"Of course we assume that there will be a normalization here in the course of 2021, that is completely clear," says CFO Kreis.
Growth of five to seven percent would then be conceivable for the time after Corona.
But because this growth takes place from a higher base, these would also be excellent values, emphasized the manager.
In a month or a quarter there could also be stagnating or falling values, "but we do not expect that there will be a significant setback".
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Kreis sees the pandemic as a sustainable acceleration of e-commerce and means a change in retail and consumer behavior: Even small retailers have discovered or expanded digital sales channels for themselves. In addition, many consumers are likely to have got used to the parcel shipments and are also relying more on online orders than before after the pandemic.
In addition to mail and parcel delivery in Germany, the Bonn-based company has other corporate divisions that have also developed very well.
The number of express shipments rose by a quarter.
These shipments are of particular interest to companies - companies are assured that important documents or spare parts will arrive at a certain point in time.
There was also positive development in the previously ailing freight business, in the supply chain business and in foreign e-commerce.
In short: the post office is running, the shop is booming.
The executive suite of the group is bursting with optimism.
Another goal was raised on Wednesday: In 2023, Deutsche Post wants to post an operating result (EBIT) of more than seven billion euros.
She had previously forecast more than 6 billion euros.
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Shareholder representatives are also satisfied with the development of the company, whose share price has almost doubled within a year.
On Thursday, the board will answer questions from shareholders in an online general meeting.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210505-99-475703 / 2
Message from Swiss Post on the 1st quarter