Baltic, Financial Services, Good for Business, Markets and Companies, Post Office

"In spite of the decline in the use of traditional postal services and profitability challenges, Omniva has succeeded in growing its business from year to year by keeping pace with its customers' changed needs and introducing new business models," chairman of the supervisory board Merike Saks said LETA/BNS.

The revenue of the group's parcel business in the Baltic region grew 17% over the year. The increase in parcel business was especially notable in Latvia, where revenues from parcel services grew by 90% compared to the previous year. In Lithuania, Omniva's revenues from parcel business increased by 30% year over year.

The parcel machine service continued to show rapid growth in all three Baltic states, increasing by 42%. The service grew by 25% in Estonia, 92% in Latvia and 90% in Lithuania. Altogether, Omniva delivered 40% more parcels to its customers via parcel machines in 2016 than it did in 2015.

Owing to the popularity of parcel machines as well as to the rapid growth of e-commerce, Omniva expanded its parcel machine network by a total of 35% in the Baltic region, including an increase of 54% in Latvia and 49% in Lithuania. It is the most extensive parcel machine network which covers the entire Baltic area, the company said.

Omniva's fastest growing business area is international business whose revenue increased by 107% in 2016. "Although the twofold growth is a remarkable result, I am confident that the growth in international e-commerce will not slow down. Instead, the upward trend will continue," Eesti Post CEO Aavo Karmas said.

Omniva delivered close to 40 mln shipments to around 100 destination countries and created 50 new jobs in its distribution center in Tallinn last year in connection with the rapid increase in this business area.

Revenues from the information logistics business  increased by 35% compared to 2015. The expansion of Omniva's operations in Latvia and Lithuania as well as the increase in the volumes in Estonia were important steps in this area of business. An important step in cross-border cooperation was the conclusion of a strategic partnership with Pagero, the leading operator of e-invoices in Europe, which enables Omniva to provide a broad international reach in e-invoicing to its Baltic customers.

Revenue from postal services which Omniva only provides in Estonia continued to decline, decreasing by 3% over the year. The reason for the decline is the continued decrease in the volume of letter services. The volume of letter services shrinks by 10-15% each year, Karmas observed. Last year the volume of domestic letters fell by 12% and deliveries of advertisements and periodicals by 2% and 3%, respectively.

The group's investments increased by 20%, amounting to 7.7 mln euros.

The group employed an average of 2,244 people in the Baltic states in 2016.