French postal giant La Poste reported an operating revenue of €12.246bn in the first half of 2018, an increase of 2.9% on 2017. Its operating profit grew by 5.9% to €806 million.

According to the postal operator, activities on the whole have remained strong.

Within that La Poste, the Services-Mail-Parcels division had a revenue of €5.708bn, down around 0.9% on 2017 while operating profit was down by 25.8% to €376m.

La Poste puts this down to the effect of “the lasting impact of the streamlining and digitisation of traditional mail, with a decrease in addressed mail volumes of 7.0%”

Parcels revenues grew by 3.4% to €858 million. According to the company this was down to “increased volumes of packages (+4.4%9) which totalled 154 million items (essentially domestic B2C flows)” and a “significant increase in “out-of-home” deliveries (+45.7%)”.

Meanwhile GeoPost saw an 8.3% growth in revenue to €3.527bn. According to La Poste: “The 7.5%11 growth in parcels delivered amounting to 631m items (impact amounting to an increase of €263m, mix included) explains to a large extent this increase.” However, GeoPost’s profits were down 5.8% to €186m.

La Banque Postale saw its revenue drop 4.2% to €2,926m but its operating profit was up 29.9% at €546m. La Poste attributed this to an “increase in NBI along with relatively stable operating expenses”.

Looking ahead for 2018 as a whole, La Poste said it was anticipating “a moderate increase in operating revenue and a relatively stable operating profit”.