FAN Courier consolidates its leading position. Last year’s 6 mln euro investments, to be continued in 2014

FAN Courier, the leading courier company in the domestic market since 2006, keeps the upward trend the industry has seen in the last years, posting increasing turnover of nearly 63 million euro in 2013. The company has recorded a growth of 16 percent over the previous year in terms of revenue, results exceeding expectations, as the company forecasted an advance by only 10 percent. At the same time, FAN Courier’s investments of 6 million euro in 2013 have brought total investments to 50 million euro in 16 years of activity. As last year, in 2014, investing in technology, introducing new services, modernizing the fleet, revamping the offices outside Bucharest and staff training are FAN’s priorities with respect to investments, its leaders betting on innovation at all levels.

”2013 was a great year, though atypical. Atypical because during the first three quarters we have registered a moderate growth and had a year-end rather <incandescent>”, Adrian Mihai, one of the company’s shareholders, said during the annual press conference of FAN Courier. He further explained that, apart from online commerce which is their main growth engine, the upsurge in the last months of the year was also triggered by small retailers who instead of keeping large stocks, chose to store fewer items and consequently, to place smaller orders with direct effect on deliveries. E-commerce, in fact, generates revenues which account for 30 percent of FAN’s turnover, having a year-on-year growth rate of 3-4 percent. Black Friday, particularly, turned into a frenzy of excitement among consumers, having a major impact on the company’s operations. Additionally, an important factor influencing their business was growth consumption, according to Adrian Mihai.

Even so, the fiscal instability alters their profitability. With profit margin on a decreasing direction, Felix Patrascanu, FAN’s CEO, anticipates that this year will be the first one in which the profit ratio will be a one-digit figure. He pointed out, during the same press conference, that these estimations are based on the newest taxes the Government introduced, such as the 7 eurocents excise duty on fuel or the tax on special constructions that affects the financial performance. 

Nevertheless, the business continues its overall development, the noticeable progress in the last quarter of 2013 being reflected in the company’s evolution within the first months of the current year, as the growth rate in its revenue also exceeded previous estimations. Adrian Mihai states that FAN’s revenue in Q1 went up by more than 15 percent (financial results have not been finalized, though), whereas the foreseen growth rate was ranging from 10 to 15 percent. 

In that same interval, FAN Courier has made investments amounting to 1.5 million euro of a total of 4.5 million budgeted for 2014. Yet, if the current economic environment keeps improving, the investment it is very likely to augment the funds, as happened last year when the 4 million euro initially allocated to investment projects proved to be insufficient, so there were added other 2 million euro to the company’s investment budget. Most of this amount was directed to its fleet – some 3.8 million euro, followed by the IT and technological infrastructures which were allocated about 800.000 euro. 

With 16 years of activity in the courier business, FAN Courier is the leading company in this industry in Romania, covering also deliveries abroad. Chiefly focused on B2B and B2C sectors, the company has a market share of approximately 27 percent of the domestic courier market which last year came to around 260 million euro, according to representatives of the company.