New Zealand Post has reported strong interim results for the second half of 2016, with underlying net profit after taxation (NPAT) of NZ$14 million for the six months to December. The figures do not however include Kiwibank.

The mail, logistics and parcels business (collectively the postal services) excluding one-offs is up $15 million on the same period in 2015.

New Zealand Post’s Chief Executive Brian Roche said the improvement is “attributable to benefits flowing through from cost savings over the past three years, more efficient delivery of mail and parcels, and a 7.5% increase in parcel volumes over the six-month period”.

The Chief Executive of New Zealand Post also said he was ‘very encouraged’ by the turnaround in the postal services division from what it was a year ago.

“This is a strong first half result,” said Roche. “Given we face the same challenge every year of having to combat the $20-30 million in revenue we lose annually due to the decline in letters, we are pleased that our strategy is delivering and putting the postal services business further in the black.

“Online shopping continues to boom as more businesses embrace e-commerce. We are now in a better position to capture more of that growth. That is the major difference from where we were this time last year.”

While revenues were down $46 million from 2015 to $467 million, New Zealand Post said that this was “attributable to foregone revenue from the sale of Converga in November 2015 and the decline of letter volumes, not fully offset by growth in the parcel business”.

New Zealand Post added that it launched the new parcel delivery options, Authority to Leave at home and Parcel Collect, and it saw “2m additional parcels processed in November and December, on the same previous period”.  
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