In this era of electronic communications and increasingly varied customer expectations, Hongkong Post’s operations face ever-changing business dynamics and challenges. Nevertheless, these challenges have brought us opportunities to sharpen our efficiency, diversify our product offerings and improve customer experience.
In 2013/14, Hongkong Post continued to develop different products and services to meet customer needs. In response to the market demand for personalised delivery solutions as a result of e-commerce development, a new Smart Post service with an economical track-and-trace function and a choice between local delivery and counter collection was introduced. In addition, a web-based direct marketing platform (DMDIY.hk) was launched to enable merchants to design fit-for-purpose promotional campaigns using multiple channels.
To maintain the financial sustainability of the Post Office Trading Fund, we continued to pursue various cost management measures and implement productivity enhancement initiatives. The new Central Mail Centre is taking up the mail processing function which has for many years been split between two sorting centres located on the two sides of the harbour, thus realising improved efficiency and economy of scale in postal operations. The Integrated Postal Services System, which is being rolled out, will automate counter operations and streamline back end support functions, while enhancing customer experience when using our frontline services.
In 2013/14, Hongkong Post handled 1.23 billion mail items (or a daily average of 3.38 million items), representing a 9.4% decrease from 2012/13 or a 6.2% decrease when excluding election mail handled in 2012.
Local mail, which accounted for 84.0% of the total mail traffic, dropped by 9.0% over 2012/13 (or 5.0% when excluding election mail). International mail, which accounted for the remaining 16.0% of traffic, registered an 11.8% decrease. The major destinations for outgoing international letters and parcels were the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Mainland China and Canada.
The principal postage rates and some miscellaneous postal fees, many of which had remained unchanged for over a decade, were revised respectively on 1 October 2013 and 1 December 2013. This helped ease our financial situation during the year. Hongkong Post’s total operating revenue in 2013/14 was HK$5,249.2 million, an increase of 1.4% over 2012/13. Coupled with a 0.7% decrease in operating costs, the overall operating loss was reduced to around HK$2.6 million for the year. The rate of return on average net fixed assets was -0.5% in 2013/14.
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