Swiss Post was able to mitigate the financial consequences of the pandemic last year. It ended the year with a consolidated profit of 457 million francs, up 279 million compared to 2020. But its core business remains under pressure.
In 2021, in a context still marked by the pandemic, operating profit (EBIT) stands at 515 million francs, up 257 million compared to 2020, the Post Office announced on Thursday. Compared to 2019, before the pandemic, the increase is still 65 million.
General Manager Roberto Cirillo felt that La Poste had achieved “an excellent financial result”. “For the first time in many years, we have experienced growth: this is proof that our strategy is the right one”, he told the media in Bern on the occasion of the presentation of the annual figures. .
Despite this positive result, many challenges remain: negative interest rates for PostFinance, decline in counter transactions, continued decline in the volume of letters and, at the same time, an increase in the volume of parcels. To cope with this, it plans to invest around 1.5 billion francs in logistics infrastructure by 2030.
‘We must develop the services that our customers expect’, added President Christian Levrat, for whom ‘a changing Switzerland needs a changing Post Office’. This development requires the concentration of efforts in the key areas of logistics and communication, said the Fribourgeois
President of La Poste since last December, Mr. Levrat again noted that “things are going well” with Mr. Cirillo, despite their different professional backgrounds. “We are complementary,” said the former councilor to the States and ex-president of the Socialist Party.
E-commerce boom
In 2021, the first year of the new strategic period, the volume of parcels grew by almost 10%, due to the explosion of online commerce and the measures to combat the pandemic ordered at the start of the year. As for letters, their volume fell by more than 3%. These changes and the acquisition of companies enabled the logistics services unit to increase its turnover by 127 million francs.
The mobility services unit achieved a result of 18 million francs, an increase of 81 million compared to the previous financial year. Swiss Post mainly attributes this growth to the federal and cantonal compensation paid to PostBus following the losses recorded in regional transport due to the pandemic.
RéseauPostal also improved its operating profit, reducing its loss to 68 million francs, an increase of 33 million compared to the previous financial year. La Poste notes, however, that traditional counter transactions continued to decline by 12%.
Finally, the operating loss of the new communication services unit amounted to 80 million francs. La Poste explains this figure, in line with its forecasts, by the investments it has made in this developing sector.
Little investment in Russia
PostFinance, for its part, achieved an operating result of 272 million francs, up 110 million compared to 2020. Last year, it launched the new PostFinance App as well as the online banking application Yuh.
Asked about its activities in Russia, La Poste said it had “not really invested” in Russia and Ukraine, while recalling that there are indirect exposures in the world of finance. “We pay pensions to people who live in Russia and we will continue to do so if the technical conditions allow it,” said Hansruedi Köng, CEO of Postfinance.
/ ATS