Latvijas Pasts reaches historically the biggest turnover in 2017 – an increase of 13 million euro
31.07.2018
The year 2017 marked a significant increase of 20.6% or 12.9 million euro in the net turnover of Latvijas Pasts, as shown by the company’s report for 2017, audited by the audit firm KPMG Baltics SIA. This is historically the biggest turnover of the company, amounting to 75.6 million euro. The growth of the turnover is a result of the activities implemented by Latvijas Pasts in promoting the company’s long-term development, being actively involved in the digitalisation of services, attracting e-commerce items, as well as creating new products and additional services, for example, by engaging in the provision of transit services for the delivery of Asian postal items to third countries.
The net profit of Latvijas Pasts in the reporting period reached 1.7 million euro. The major segments of the services where the greatest revenue growth was observed in 2017 were postal parcel items – an increase of 398% or 11.3 million euro, the Postal Settlement System services – 38.1% or more than one million euro and letter post – 2.1% or 0.6 million euro.
“In 2017 we reached both the largest increase in Latvijas Pasts turnover and historically the biggest turnover of the company. It shows that we are moving in the right direction, establishing long-term development projects and creating products and services that will bring added value to Latvijas Pasts in the long run,” Mārcis Vilcāns, Chairman of the Board of Latvijas Pasts, points out.
The most important development projects of Latvijas Pasts in 2017 were implemented in the field of customer-friendly and employee-friendly environment, modern services and digitalisation, while developing new services for e-commerce customers both in Latvia and abroad – for example, getting engaged in a transit project in cooperation with Cainiao, a logistics sector company of the Chinese trading platform Alibaba.
In 2017 Latvijas Pasts introduced the multifunctional customer flow control system in 67 post offices throughout the country, enabling customers to apply for postal services remotely using the Latvijas Pasts mobile app. The mentioned project will be continued in 2018 by involving 20 more post offices, planning to bring the total number of the post offices equipped with this system to 86.
From all postal businesses operating in the country, Latvijas Pasts is the only one that ensures the exchange of post in the entire national territory every weekday. Therefore, the company started to implement the replacement of the fleet of the outmoded cargo vans in May 2017. To ensure more efficient delivery of the universal postal service and express mail items, in the reporting period Latvijas Pasts acquired more economical, more environmentally-friendly and more comfortable vehicles for employees under an operating lease, which helps to reduce fuel and car fleet maintenance costs as well as improve the working conditions of the car drivers. The upgrading of the fleet continues in 2018 with a view to replace another 64 vans.
Implementing the transfer of the services into the digital environment and speeding up the possibility of item delivery, since the end of November 2017 Latvijas Pasts has been sending invitations regarding the receipt of items at the post office to the mobile phone number specified by the customer, thus improving the customer service and the possibility for receiving the item faster, as well as saving Latvijas Pasts resources, which used to be spent on printing paper invitations. On average around 250,000 mobile text messages for receipt of items are sent to customers per month, and their number continues to grow. After the end of the reporting period, in July 2018, Latvijas Pasts began sending out e-invitations also for receipt of registered items if the customer has accepted this service and if the customer’s mobile telephone number is indicated on the relevant items.
In 2017, to modernise the functionality of the Postal Settlement System, Latvijas Pasts implemented a number of system improvements: a mobile text message service was introduced to record the balance on the customer accounts and the bill payment processing times were speeded up to a maximum of one business day in accordance with modern settlement principles. Since the introduction of the mobile text message service, Latvijas Pasts has been sending around 50,000 such SMS every month, providing fast, convenient and advantageous receipt of the account information.
The implementation of the transit project started by Latvijas Pasts at the end of 2017 is actively continuing and developing in 2018, focusing both on new destinations of items and offering new services to customers. The transit item project mainly involves the delivery of the items of the world’s second largest trading platform Alibaba from China to third countries. Until now Latvijas Pasts has handled more than 20 cargoes from aircraft carrying such transit items, of which the largest aircraft is Boeing 747. In a short period of time within the transit project Latvijas Pasts has created new products and efficient data exchange solutions, including the ones for cooperation with the customs, earning not only the award for effective cooperation from Cainiao, a logistics company of Alibaba Group, but also the recognition of the World Customs Organization for the provision of exceptional services to the international customs community.
A number of significant projects have been implemented since the end of the reporting period, involving both more efficient and high-quality delivery of items and creation of new added-value services. In 2018 a total of 1,300 postmen have been equipped with mobile smart devices that allow them to register the fact of the receipt of the postal item and the customer’s signature online, as well as to control the delivery routes and their efficiency.
In turn, to promote the company’s competitiveness and diversify its revenue opportunities in the long term, Latvijas Pasts has started to provide customs broker services, helping customers – legal entities – to carry out customs clearance procedures and export cargo registration.
In 2018 Latvijas Pasts continues to develop its core business activities, with a specific focus on increasing profitability and quality, improving work organisation, automating processes and digitisation.
About SJSC Latvijas Pasts
Latvijas Pasts ensures the widest availability of postal services throughout Latvia by maintaining more than 600 post offices. The primary function of the company is provision of the universal postal service; Latvijas Pasts also provides commercial transport, express mail, payment, press subscription, retail and philatelic services. Latvijas Pasts is a wholly State-owned company with around 4,000 employees. The quality measurements of Latvijas Pasts domestic mail deliveries are regularly conducted by Kantar TNS, one of the leading market, social and media research agencies in Latvia. In turn, the quality measurements of the cross-border deliveries are provided within the framework of the International Post Corporation through the intermediary of the research companies Kantar TNS, Ipsos and Quotas.
