Mail delivery, in free fall, weighs down the accounts of La Poste.
Fortunately for the public company, the rise of e-commerce offers it a source of growth that it has been able to seize head-on.
It has a 50% market share in parcel distribution in France.
To maintain this advantage in a constantly growing market, La Poste announced on Tuesday a new investment plan of 450 million euros over the period 2022-2026, the equivalent of what it has already invested since 2018.
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"The investments made have enabled us to cope with the very strong growth in the parcel business last year and to gain market share
," notes Philippe Dorge, deputy general manager of the La Poste group, in charge of the branch. parcel courier services.
But we believe that e-commerce still has strong growth potential: online sales only represent 13% of purchases in France, compared to 25% in the United Kingdom. ”
This year, La Poste plans to distribute 510 million Colissimo.
In 2030, it is targeting the billion.
Several factors are driving this growth.
The biggest customers of La Poste - the leaders in e-commerce such as Amazon, Cdiscount or La Redoute - are seeing their activity increase and their delivery times reduced.
Even though Amazon is developing its own logistics capacities and is delivering an increasing share of its parcels itself, it still supplies 10% of the parcels sent by La Poste.
The state-owned company is also seeing strong growth in shipments of small goods shipped from Asia, via sites such as Wish or AliExpress.
Finally, the second-hand market is boosting shipments between individuals.
Reinforced post office jobs
To cope with these growing volumes, La Poste had to strengthen its industrial capacities. The public company will open five new innovative logistics platforms by 2026, capable of sorting parcels three times faster than in the past. They will be located in areas that La Poste has not or little covered over the past four years: the east of France, the west, the south-west and the south-east. Around 100 smaller distribution sites, which act as relays between sorting platforms and the last mile, will be modernized. This densification of the postal network will make it possible to deliver 40% of parcels the day after they are sent, but without a guaranteed schedule,
"otherwise it is the Chronopost service"
, specifies Philippe Dorge.
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These investments secure the employment of postal workers.
Without the new capacities announced on Tuesday, La Poste would not be able to process all the volumes of future parcels.
It would be forced to increase its recourse to subcontracting to external companies, to 25% of its activity against 19% today.
“This is the lowest rate on the market,”
emphasizes the company.
La Poste even wants to re-internalize part of its sorting and distribution activity.
It is targeting 11% of subcontracted parcels in 2027.
"In addition to the 500 direct jobs created, these investments make it possible to consolidate the employment of thousands of postal workers faced with the drop in mail",
explains Philippe Dorge.
La Poste can thus pool its distribution activities for letters, prospectuses and parcels.
