Service-oriented - Die Schweizerische Post

Volumes/capital trend
Swiss Post’s environment and strategy
Annual Report | Financial Report | Financial commentary
The economy
The second half of 2006 saw a continuation of the strong expansion in the global economy. Although the
sustained upturn in the USA lost some momentum, growth in Europe strengthened. The economic upturn also
continued in Japan and most other countries in Asia, particularly China. This trend occurred against a backdrop
of highly volatile oil prices. In Switzerland, economic growth was balanced and broadly based. The situation
in the labour market continued to improve, increasing job security and lifting consumer confidence. In
2006 the provisional GDP growth rate was 2.7 percent, according to seco (press release, March 2007).
Demand for logistics and financial services depends on the economic trend and the related trend in interest
rates. The transport and logistics industry received a boost from foreign trade and healthy consumer sentiment,
while the communications sector continued to rank among the drivers of growth. Swiss Post benefited
from these trends, particularly in the financial and logistics sectors.
Customers
Whereas the communications sector is growing, the trend towards dwindling volumes of traditional domestic
and international letters continued undiminished due to the changing behaviour of private customers (new
technology) and the efforts being made by business customers to optimize their mailings (primarily non­priority
items).
By contrast, the total volume of parcels remained at the prior­year level. This rowth was solely attributable
to the number of Swiss­Express items. In addition, thanks to new and innovative solutions for business
customers, Swiss Post was able to almost stabilize the decline in parcel volumes caused by competition.
Once again, growth in the net inflow of new money at PostFinance was gratifying and above­average for
the industry. It explains the increase in the total amount of customer deposits and reflects the high level of
acceptance among customers in a fiercely competitive market.
The number of passengers increased slightly due to favourable trends affecting mandated services (environmental
awareness, fuel prices).
Buoyed by the sound economic environment (tourism, exports), international letter post increased year on
year.
Mail Addressed letters
of which priority items
of which non­priority items
Unaddressed items
Newspapers
Logistics Services Parcels
Swiss­express
Financial Services Inflow of new money
Customer deposits
items in millions
items in millions
items in millions
items in millions
items in millions
items in millions
items in thousands
CHF m
Avg. in CHF m
2006 2005 Change
Passenger Transport Passengers in millions 106 105 0.9 %
International Letters mailed (from Switzerland) items in millions 200 192 4.2 %
1 Prior­year figure (adjusted)
2 762
742
1 984
1 159
1 196
104
4 416
2 548
40 604
2 813
751 1
2 0221 1 2111 1 2011 105
4 187
2 065
38 169
83
– 1.8 %
– 1.2 %
– 1.9 %
– 4.3 %
– 0.4 %
– 0.3 %
5.5 %
23.4 %
6.4 %