FAN Courier estimates business at 168 million euros, 15% higher than in 2018

FAN Courier, the leader of the local courier market in Romania, continues to develop and consolidate the business and estimates for next year a business growth of up to 15 percent over the current year. The Romanian company, founded over 20 years ago by Felix Pătrășcanu, Adrian Mihai and Neculai Mihai, will end the financial year of this year with a turnover of almost 168 million euros, up 15% over the 2018 result .

"<> is one of the keywords that best describes the activity of the current year. Growth and investment are two other positive attributes that have marked this year's activity, both in terms of FAN Courier and the courier market we are activating. It was a good year, we continued our development and we expect to close the year with a turnover of 15% higher than last year, "said Adrian Mihai, founder of FAN Courier.

FAN Courier kept pace with the investments of over 13 million euros assumed at the beginning of the year, 11.5 million euros being allocated only for investments in the car fleet.

2019 also marked a premiere in the business strategy of the company since the beginning of FAN Courier activity, as the company announced the completion of the partnership with SLS, a business owned by a Romanian contractor, specialized in warehousing services.

“The partnership with SLS came to complete our development plans on the storage segment. SLS activity is complementary to the one in which we are specialized, they are professionals in their field as we are professionals in the field of courier. We believe it will be a sustainable partnership in which two solid, time-validated expertise are put together, which is why SLS management remains unchanged and the company's CEO continues to be its founder, Mr. Mihai Stoica ”, said Neculai Mihai, managing partner FAN Courier.

Online commerce, one of the main engines of business growth in the industry, generated 40 to 45 percent of the annual volume of deliveries this year, still heavily influenced by Black Friday, the largest discount campaign in Romania.

"Every Black Friday campaign is different from the previous year and when we say this we mean a lot of variables - the duration of the campaign announced by retailers, the offers or the options of the buyers. If last year, from Black Friday, the TVs were the stars of the campaign, this year the demand changed and several white products (appliances - n.n.), pampers or dog food were bought, for example. Every year we prepare for months and we manage to be better. In 2019, the figures are better, we have registered an increase in volume, even above the initial estimates. If on the first day we expected an increase of 15% in volume, in reality it exceeded 20% ", said Felix Pătrășcanu, one of the three shareholders of the company.

In a peak of the busiest months from the perspective of orders, November has been the busiest for several years, because it is the month in which Black Friday is organized but also because it has 22 or 23 working days. December is the busiest month of the year for the daily activity, because it is the month with the fewest working days and, implicitly, the month with the highest pressure on couriers. The Monday of the week of Christmas and all the working days of the week preceding this holiday are the busiest days of the year. According to the statistics made by the company, on the first day of Monday after Black Friday, the FAN couriers had to deliver 270,000 shipments and on the Monday of the week of Christmas, the number of deliveries was 291,000.

The company's founders say the end of the year was marked by a diversification of challenges. In addition to the poor road infrastructure that impedes development, transport costs and delivery times increase, besides the serious labor crisis, already widespread throughout the economy, legislative changes adopted overnight or completely unfavorable to the Romanian business environment such as the famous Ordinance 114 , were an unfavorable element for the business environment.

"The stability and prudent strategy that we have applied for years have helped us to cope with this new type of challenge that has affected the whole economy," added Adrian Mihai.

The company's plans for 2020 aim to continue the development and partnership with SLS, but also to finalize the procedures and documentation necessary for the effective start of the investment in the Cluj HUB, the third most important in the company's portfolio.