CTT profits fall 53.9% to €7.4 million in Q1

Portugal’s private postal company CTT saw profits plummet 53.9% to €7.4 million between January and March this year.

According to the company on Thursday, the fall was down to falls in its Financial Services and Retail business results.

In quarterly results published on the site of the Portuguese securities regulator CMVM, the company led by João Bento revealed that the EBITDA fell by 16.6% to €34 million.

CTT stresses that the evolution of the consolidated net result was significantly influenced by a decrease in the recurrent EBIT (Down €8.8 million — a like-for-like variation rate of -34.2%) as a result of the performance observed in the Postal, Financial Services and Retail segments”.

Operational revenues stood at €263.5 million in Q1, a like-for-like increase of 9%, driven by Expresso (Express postal/parcel services for companies), Parcels, Banco CTT and Post, among others.

Expresso and Parcels brought in €101.4 million in revenues between January and March (+56.8%), reflecting strong growth in traffic both in Spain (+120.9%) and Portugal (+12.4%), continuing to benefit from an increase in e-commerce uptake and market share gains.

In terms of Postal and Others, revenues climbed 6% to €120.3 million, mainly due to an increase in prices, an evolution of mix and legislative elections traffic”, said the company.

Banco CTT revenues stood at about €36.2 million, an increase of 6.3% because of an expansion of its customer base, reaching 658,000 accounts (up 11,000 on December, 2023) and business turnover.

Regarding Financial and Retail Services, revenues were down €23.2 million — a fall of 80.8% owing to “an exceptional placement of Portuguese public debt” during the period.

In relation to Banco CTT, the company explained that revenue growth was down to a positive performance in the financial margin that went up 9.3% to €24.1 million.

Interest received was up €14.8 million, benefitting from an increase in interest rates and a growth in turnover, while paid out interest on client deposits and car securitisation increased €12.8 million on the same period in 2023.