E-business lifts Thailand Post

Thailand Post expects to maintain its stellar profit growth of 10% and reach 2 billion baht this year, supported by the higher-margin express parcel business and booming e-commerce market.

But the state enterprise’s revenue is forecast to increase by just 1% to 22 billion baht, due to the sluggish economy.

Piyawat Mahapauraya, deputy president of Thailand Post, said the local e-commerce market grows by 20% a year on average, spurring greater demand for the express parcel service.

Thailand Post reported consolidated first-half revenue of 11.04 billion baht.

Of the total, emergency mail service and parcel delivery were still the highest revenue source at 5.13 billion baht or 46.4%, followed by mail service (4.86 billion), retail business (440 million) and payment services (287 million).

Thailand Post is on the verge of overhauling its delivery processes for emergency mail service and parcels to tackle persistent delivery problems.

Up to 1,200 parcels were lost during the first half. In addition, 280 parcels were damaged and 3,000 were delayed or arrived after the guaranteed delivery date.

“We are adopting advanced technologies to address the delivery problem by installing CCTV at all post office branches nationwide,” Mr Piyawat said.

Damaged parcels amount to fewer than 1% of parcels delivered, he said, and Thailand Post aims to have zero cases of damaged goods within a few years’ time.

To boost its corporate image and reputation, the postal service has launched a campaign of indemnification for damage incurred by the emergency mail service.

The campaign, running until this November, lets customers use the screening process of the post office’s service point and confirm that the parcel was “checked”.

Thailand Post guarantees a payout of 1.5 times the value of a parcel found to be damaged during the delivery process (not to exceed 3,000 baht per parcel).

The campaign will apply at 17 post offices in Bangkok as a pilot project, Mr Piyawat said.