Royal Mail handled 164 million parcels in the UK during the December trading period, up 10 per cent over last year, and is in line with its cost avoidance programme to deliver £100 million of cost savings 2018-19, according to its trading statement for nine months ended 23 December 2018.
The Group made savings in property, technology and central functions, through the modernisation of its Heathrow distribution centre, from last year’s operational management headcount reduction and the absorption of the shorter working week. “Our short-term cost actions, including a review of our organisational structure and management roles, discretionary spend and central costs, are being implemented,” said the trading statement.
“Overall, our recent trading performance was broadly in line with our expectations. We now confirm that we expect to deliver adjusted Group operating profit before transformation costs of £500-530m for 2018-19,” said Royal Mail plc group chief executive officer Rico Back.
“In the UK, our parcels business continued to perform well, with volumes and revenue in the nine months both up 6%. Addressed letter volumes, excluding the impact of elections, were down 8%, with total letter revenue down 6%, largely reflecting the continuing impact of GDPR and a relatively strong prior year comparative period.”
