Royal Mail PLC (LSE:RMG) is expanding its Sunday delivery service to keep pace with other next-day delivery providers, which could go some way in stemming its haemorrhaging share price, but is unlikely to rescue it from sliding out of the FTSE 100 this week.
The UK postal service said it has expanded its Sunday delivery service to more than 12,000 online retail customers, which was previously only available at 75 of the largest retailers.
Now any retailer or marketplace using the Royal Mail Tracked24 service will be able to provide next-day delivery for Saturday orders, Royal Mail said in a statement.
Royal Mail's chief commercial officer Nick Landon said the postal business “is transforming to make sure we deliver” what customers need, both “now and in the future”.
There are two parts to Royal Mail's business, including Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide, which form its UK operations, and an international deferred parcel delivery network, General Logistics Systems.
Royal Mail’s shares were up 4.64% in the last five days and rose 2.6% to 329.60p on Monday morning.
The postal service’s share price has some way to go to recover anywhere near the 523p its shares were trading at on 4 January 2022.
Analysts forecast that Royal Mail will drop from the FTSE 100 index in tomorrow’s quarterly footsie reshuffle, as it contends with rising wage inflation and the end of the lockdown parcel boom.
Deutsche Bank analyst Andy Chu said last week that the investment bank remained “sellers of Royal Mail Group”.