Australia Post Boasts Strong Revenue Growth Despite Letter Loss

The results show group revenue at $3.8 billion, up four percent on last year. “This is the highest revenue growth in over a decade for these services without a major acquisition,” the report found.

Furthermore, letter revenue was down nine percent, and letter losses rose a further $46 million. This accumulates to 112 per cent to a total loss of $87 million for this HY.

“Our strategy to diversify our business and focus on our customers is working well, evidenced by our record underlying performance,” said Cristine Holgate, Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at Australia Post. “However, the costs to operate the letter business continue to rise, as our people are still required to deliver to every home or business every day, process and collect the mail, whilst letter volumes and revenues fall. The 10 cent letter increase in January will support our letters business going forward, but after four years of no increases, it alone will not fully compensate for the losses.”

“Australia Post and the services we provide are highly regarded in the community, particularly in rural and regional Australia, where often we are the last remaining service provider with a physical presence. In order to ensure we are able to continue to provide these community services and remain sustainable, the time has come, we must transform our delivery network.”

The Christmas period of 2019 was the ‘busiest ever’ for Australia Post, with more than 50 million parcels delivered in December. “This Christmas was our busiest ever and we delivered over 50 million parcels in December, with over 3.1 million on our biggest day. Over 190 million letters were delivered, 4600 staff hired across the national network and pleasingly during this time complaints to our customer service teams decreased by 14 percent,” Holgate said.

As a result of this quarter, Australia Post expects the ‘second half to again be quieter’, which is ‘consistent with previous years’.

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