Parcel and postage prices are likely to rise again as Royal Mail tries to cover higher costs including wages, energy and fuel costs.
The company said it will seek to “mitigate” costs through “price increases and growth initiatives.”
Earlier this year the company increased the price of first class stamps by 10p to 95p and second class by 2p to 68p.
The alert comes after Royal Mail warned it faces “significant headwinds” due to rising costs.
It said it must cut costs more as a result, raising its target to over £350m from the previous £290m.
Royal Mail said it will also continue to transform the business to better deal with it as its parcel business becomes more important than letter delivery.
Letter volume has fallen by more than 60% since its peak in 2004-05 and by about 20% since the pandemic began. Meanwhile, parcel deliveries have continued to increase since the pandemic.
Royal Mail Chief Executive Simon Thompson said: “As we emerge from the pandemic, the need to accelerate the transformation of our business, particularly in delivery, has become increasingly urgent.
“Our future is in parcels, so we need to adapt old letter-centric ways of working and adapt that much faster to a world that’s becoming increasingly parcel-dominated.”
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Mr Thompson said the focus will now be on working with staff and unions “to work at pace” to “reinvent this British icon for generations to come”, to give customers “what they want”, to grow the business sustainably and “to create long-term jobs”. Security”.
The price hike warning came as the company reported an 8.8% fall in pre-tax profit to £662m for the year to the end of March.
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