The coronavirus pandemic has forced Italians to change their lifestyles in many respects, including consumption habits. This is confirmed by the latest numbers released by Poste Italiane, which has achieved record results in e-commerce and digital. The boom in online shopping has led the group to sort up to one million parcels per day, while the use of web services has increased by 50%.
Matthew Del Fante, CEO of Poste Italiane, admits that the coronavirus takes away from the target set by the business plan of bringing the operating margin to 1,8 billion, but at the same time underlines that "in crucial sectors such as e-commerce and digital Poste Italiane ” is currently reaching the goals set for 2022.
"These are unthinkable goals until a few months ago - explains the CEO - Just think that in these days Poste Italiane delivers one million parcels a day, exactly the same number of deliveries that we record during the peak of the Christmas period last year" . In recent months, the postal sorting center in Bologna – the most important in Europe – has doubled its parcel processing and distribution capacity.
In e-commerce, Poste now focuses on the "premium" segment and for this reason it has created a joint venture with Milkman, logistics platform specialized in advanced delivery services. With an investment of 25 million, the group has created the newco Mlk Deliveries, which will take care of scheduled deliveries, which can also be made within 24 hours of the order.
As it regards instead digital services, in which Poste Italiane has invested 750 million euros, "in the three months marked by the pandemic - continues Del Fante - we recorded a strong increase in both traffic and transaction volumes, with a +50% in voice traffic on the estimates of the Business Plan and an equal increase in access to digital channels and the use of third-party service networks for the delivery and collection of parcels, such as that of the points of sale of the Italian Tobacconist Federation. Equally sustained was the acceleration in the release of Spid digital identities, while we even doubled the volume of data traffic".
The sectors on which the pandemic has weighed the most have been savings and financial investments, "but for a few days now we have been aligned again with the February standards - concludes the CEO - with around 200 million in gross daily collections between postal savings and life insurance policies, to which must be added the daily sale of over 10 payment and telephone cards ”.
