07. 12. 11. - 15:53

Post Partner project prospers

The number of post offices keeps decreasing, new figures show.

Post AG said yesterday (Tues) there were 622 regular post offices in Austria – and added that it planned to close some of them in the next months. The company, in which Austria holds a 52.8 per cent stake through Industry-Holding Stock Corporation ÖIAG, said the number of Post Partners shot up to 1,236 from 1,212 in the first half of this year.

Post Partners are pharmacies, grocery stores and petrol stations which cooperate with Post AG. The private businesses receive around 1,500 Euros a month for providing basic postal services. This partnership helps Post AG to avoid getting entangled into lawsuits launched by angered citizens.

Austrian law says that Post AG must guarantee a country-wide provision of postal services, even in the most remote regions. The Post Partners concept is widely seen as a successful business model – but also as a legal loophole used by the partly state-owned company which is currently reorganising its internal structure.

Post AG boss Georg Pölzl revealed his company saved 40,000 Euros with each new Post Partner cooperation. He said a poll revealed that around nine in 10 Post Partner customers were happy with the private firms’ additional services. The survey also revealed that 81 per cent of clients would recommend their Post Partner to family and friends. Customers especially appreciate the firms’ opening hours, Pölzl said, pointing out that many post offices in the countryside shut at lunchtime for the day.

The Post AG chairman – whose company reduces its workforce level by around 700 positions a year – said he was determined to continue running the Post Partner model. Pölzl reportedly sees chances to increase the number of Post Partners especially in Vienna. Only 10 per cent of all postal services providers in the federal capital are Post Partners. This share stands in stark contrast to circumstances in the eastern province of Burgenland where eight in 10 postal services facilities are shops operating as Post Partners.

Pölzl plans to raise the number of Post Partners to 1,500 in the coming months whereas the number of regular post offices should shrink to around 500. Austrian Economy Chamber (WKO) officials generally welcome the partnership since it meant higher customer numbers for most involved businesses. However, the chamber also called on Post AG to jack up payments for its cooperation partners. Popular Post Partners receive more money from Post AG than companies which fail to attract customers wanting to post letters and pick up parcels.

Post AG’s earnings before interest and taxes (Ebit) improved by 9.1 per cent from the first six months of 2010 to 81.3 million Euros in the same time span of this year. The firm’s turnover was 1.138 billion Euros, 2.9 per cent higher than one year ago. The federal postal services company has around 23,000 employees.

Post AG is doing business in five countries after it acquired a 26 per cent stake in Romanian mail firm PostMaster two months ago. Apart from Austria, the Vienna-based enterprise has also operated in Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia for some time.

Many customers were upset in February when Post AG presented plans to increase the price for posting regular-sized letters by seven Eurocents to 66 Eurocents. The price hike came into effect in May. Pölzl defended the decision. He stressed that the charge had been the same for seven years despite a 25 per cent increase of personnel costs.