Result summary by market

Good results in all four markets

Swiss Post achieved good results in all four markets, but the trends varied from market to market. Normalized operating income rose in all four markets in 2013. The passenger transport market reported the sharpest increase, with more than 4 percent.

Communication market

In the communication market, Swiss Post with its three Group units (PostMail, Swiss Post Solutions, Post Offices & Sales) generated a normalized operating profit (EBIT) of 238 million francs (previous year: 42 million francs). The volume of addressed letters fell by 2 percent. By contrast, the volume of unaddressed items increased by around 1.7 percent as a result of acquisitions.

Logistics market

In the logistics market, PostLogistics reported a normalized operating profit (EBIT) of 133 million francs (previous year: 149 million). Operating income rose to 1,581 million francs (previous year: 1,535 million). Parcel volumes increased by more than 3 percent year-on-year. However, the additional sales could not offset additional expenses caused primarily by higher internal payments for services.

Retail financial market

In the retail financial market, PostFinance generated a normalized operating profit (EBIT) of 537 million francs (down 86 million on the previous year). The decrease is primarily due to higher internal payments for services and lower net interest income due to reduced margins. PostFinance was however able to reverse previously incurred impairment charges, contributing 59 million francs to the result. With cash inflows of almost 4.3 billion francs, PostFinance again received a significant amount of new money, albeit to a lesser extent than in the previous year (9.2 billion). As banks now have to underlay their deposits at PostFinance with equity, there were cash outflows in the interbank sector. Overall, customer assets rose to over 112 billion francs (previous year: 104 billion). At year's end, 2.9 million customers had placed their trust in PostFinance.

Passenger transport market

In the passenger transport market, PostBus generated a normalized operating profit (EBIT) of 28 million francs (previous year: 35 million). Operating income rose to 812 million francs (previous year: 778 million), due to the expansion and increased frequency of services. However, this increase could not offset the additional expenses caused by the expansion of services, and by a higher headcount and increased project costs.

1 Normalized figures. See the section “One-off items and normalization”.