Royal Mail accounts - at last

At long last, Royal Mail has published its regulatory accounts for 2006/07. You can check these out here.

This is not an easy document to understand, so here are some headline figures:

• First class stamps made a loss of £71M compared to a loss of £128M in the previous year – so a significant improvement in performance but still a sizable loss
  
• Second class stamps made a loss of £114M compared to a loss of £115M in the previous year – so no change and still major losses
  
• First & second class meters made a profit of £116M compared to a profit of £203M in the previous year – so a large drop in profitability
  
• First & second class postage paid impressions (PPI) made a profit of £51M compared to a profit of £82M the previous year – so another fall in profitability.
  
• Mailsort, Cleanmail & Walksort made a loss of £61M compared to a profit of £48M the previous year – so another reverse.
  
• Downstream access made a loss of £44M compared to a loss of £14M the previous year – this is because of volumes more than doubling to over 2.4 billion items.
  
• Other products made a profit of £111M compared to a profit of £121M the previous year – again a reverse.

Combining all the product groups in the price controlled area, for 2006/07 Royal Mail made a loss of £12M compared to profit of £197M the previous year – a significant reverse in fortunes.