Isle of Man Post Office has announced continued growth in revenues from alternative markets despite a reduction in overall profit compared to the previous year. Profit of £1.9million is reported at year end, even with the loss of a major commercial customer, due to change in ownership, combined with the continued challenge of declining mail volumes and payment transactions.
Graham Cregeen MHK, Isle of Man Post Office Chairman, said: "Customer behaviours are changing, mail volumes and payment transactions are declining. This year, mail volumes fell to 32million from 35.9 million in 2012/13. We have continued to identify new business opportunities to bridge this ever increasing gap that these declines have created to help replace lost revenues.
During the financial year, we have been successful in mitigating some of these lost revenues through use of our diversification strategy, which has enabled us to develop new products and enter new markets particularly within the digital technologies arena. However, competing on the global stage for new revenue streams is fiercely competitive and will be a challenge in the coming years.
The Post Office continues to have a strong foothold here on the Island, of which it is very proud, however with the continued growth of technology and digital communication trends it now needs to focus on winning further business in the UK and rest of world in addition to the Island for its products and services. The increased activities should assist the business to sustain and develop new revenue streams to help safeguard its position here on the Island."
During the course of the year Isle of Man Post Office has made significant progress with the Post Office (Amendment) Bill 2013. The Post Office Act which has governed the Post Office for the last 20 years ago had become outdated and on the 20th May Royal Assent was announced in Tynwald for its amendment.
Mr Cregeen continues: "With the continued pressure of our on-going requirement to pay £2million per annum to Treasury irrespective of profit, this could only be achieved this year by taking money out of reserves to ensure the £2million dividend to Treasury is met. Enormous pressure has been placed upon us to continue to develop new revenue streams through diversification whilst improving our existing service offering.
To date this has been achieved by putting in place a state of the art website to ensure that we provide our customers with improved online services in addition to our retail offering, the expansion of our reach here on the Island with further kiosks introduced in key locations for absolute convenience to customers, the development of our eGaming business which uses our existing direct mail service in addition to our recently launched mobile offering. We also separated our IT systems from Government earlier this year. The separation took place so that we could introduce ownership and control over all of our IT systems. In addition to this we are currently working with Government on a new initiative which has the technology to provide a range of Government and postal services using an access card system."
He concluded: "The Isle of Man Post Office is very fortunate to have an established long term, loyal and dedicated workforce which delivers a high level of commitment and service and of which we are all very proud. I would like, therefore, to thank every staff member for their tremendous efforts across the whole business over the last year as well as my fellow board members."
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