Belgian postal operator bpost had a y-o-y fall in operating profit of more than 170% to a loss of €118.1m on revenues that improved 1.6% to €4,341m in the full year 2024. Like many of its national equivalents, letter mail was a problem but issues abound in almost every division.
BeNe Last Mile
While operating profit improved 30.0% y-o-y to €130.9m, the post and parcels division saw revenues fall 2.1% to €2,349.5m. Transactional Mail revenues fell 3.1% y-o-y to €724.3m in a large part due to falling volumes. On the other hand Parcels Belgium saw revenues up by 6.5% to €531.3m, led by volumes improving by 5.3% (though the postal operator doesn’t publish actual volume data).
The division was hit with the Belgium Federal government’s withdrawal of subsidies for newspaper and magazine deliveries in late 2023, though bpost would go on to secure deliveries direct with distributors. Volumes in this sub-segment fell, leading to revenue falling 14.5% y-o-y to €299.0m.
3PL
As a full-service logistics company, bpost offers warehousing to third party customers in Europe and the USA. This division made a loss of -€266.7m on revenues that increased by 11.0% y-o-y to €1460.4m. Within this, 3PL Europe had higher sales due to international expansion, onboarding new customers and upselling new customers.
bpost Chief Executive Chris Peeters said, “At Radial North America we are experiencing customer departures and we have yet to reverse the churn trend.” The North America segment hasn’t fully recovered from customer losses in 2023 and Amazon in-sourcing much of its logistics. New leadership announced for the sub-segment earlier this year is hoped to turn around these ongoing issues.
Cross Border
The Cross Border division saw revenues fall 2.9% y-o-y to €614.8m and EBIT was down by 12.7% y-o-y to €79.2m. Within this once again, the European operations did well and the North American business seems to have struggled. Cross Border Europe saw an improvement in revenues due to Asian parcels destined for Belgium, and these companies are turning towards tracked parcels in preference to non-tracked with a consequent improvement in profitability.
Cross Border North America reported a fall in revenue of 10.5% y-o-y to €248.1m. Subsidiary Landmark US faced headwinds in its market that were mitigated by strong peak volume development boosted by positive volume transfers during the Canada Post Strike.
Leadership positive about 2025
The CEO continued, “2025 will be a transformational year as we move towards becoming a regional digital expert in parcel-sized logistics. The foundations for future growth are in place – we need to lay them out and build them.”
Perhaps alluding to his organisation’s ongoing problems in North America but successes closer to home, Peeters continued, “This means accelerating our transformation in Belgium, reinforcing our 3PL strategy and further diversifying our cross-border activities.”
Author – Richard Shrubb
Source: Ti Insight
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