Achieving another milestone, SingPost earned a net profit of SGD126.4 million in the last year, which is about 278 per cent more, according to the results released today.
The phenomenal increase in the net profit is largely attributable to the absence of one-off impairment charges.
“Revenue for the year increased 8.6 per cent to SGD1.46 billion on growth in eCommerce-related activities across the Postal and Logistics segments,” said SingPost in a press release issued today.
Excluding exceptional items, underlying net profit declined 9.2 per cent to SGD105 million. While the eCommerce and Property segments saw improved performance, Logistics and Postal operating profits fell.
Postal revenue rose 15.0 per cent driven by higher eCommerce deliveries.
Logistics revenue increased 4.3 per cent across the Group, driven by growth in last mile eCommerce delivery volumes, as well as increased freight forwarding volumes. Operating profit declined as margins were impacted by continued investment in the business, and pricing pressures in North Asia.
Revenue of the eCommerce segment was stable despite the loss of two major customers the prior year, and accelerated by 15.7 per cent in the fourth quarter.
SingPost's rental and property-related income rose by 29.9 per cent on higher rental income from SingPost Centre, which has an occupancy of 95.6 per cent.
“SingPost is well positioned to benefit from the strong growth in global eCommerce and last-mile deliveries as we progress to the next phase of our strategy,” said Paul Coutts, Group Chief Executive Officer of SingPost.
“We continue to execute on our transformation and build on our partnership with Alibaba in eCommerce. We are integrating and scaling our eCommerce businesses in the US and Southeast Asia, as well as the rest of our overseas operations, and optimising the cost structure of the SingPost Group,” he added.
The annual dividend for the year was 3.5 cents per share after the final dividend of 2 cents per share was recommended by its board of directors.