Royal Mail Group (LON:RMG) is offering more flexible methods of delivery and collection, the Financial Times has reported. The move comes with the privatised postal operator looking to keep up with rivals, including US e-commerce giant Amazon.



Royal Mail’s share price jumped yesterday, adding 1.11 percent to close at 455.30p, outperforming the broader London market, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index adding 22.26 points to end the previous session 0.32 percent higher at 7,063.68. The group’s shares have gained about 2.6 percent over the past year, as compared with a more than 13-percent rise in the Footsie.

The FT reported this morning that Royal Mail was offering more flexible services, including tracking, notifications, the option to leave parcels with a chosen neighbour and extended opening hours. The move comes with the group looking to maintain its dominant position in the UK’s estimated £9-billion parcel market.



Royal Mail “have made great strides in recent years,” Rob Byde, an analyst at broker Cantor Fitzgerald, told the newspaper. “They’ve done a huge amount to improve the service offering. But there’s a lot of competition and it’s very good.” The FT also quoted Nick Pendleton, a former director of strategy and innovation at Royal Mail and now chief executive of advisory group Forge Strategy & Growth Associates, as noting that one area where the FTSE 100 company has advanced is returns. He, however, cautions that there is a risk of the former state-owned monopoly falling behind in other areas.



“Because Royal Mail is by far the biggest provider, it costs them more money and takes them more time to roll [new services] out properly — they can’t do things at the flick of a switch,” he pointed out, as quoted by the FT. “It needs to carry on doing a lot, but it is not as behind as you might initially think.”

The comments come as the company prepares to replace its finance chief, with Matthew Lester having this week unveiled plans to step down next year. Royal Mail has said that it will consider both internal and external candidates for the job.

As of 07:53 GMT, Friday, 23 December, Royal Mail share price is 452.50p.

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