Britain's state postal service Royal Mail has announced that annual profits slumped more than 78% as the embattled company gears up for more job losses and privatisation.
Royal Mail said operating profit slid to £39m (€44m) in the year to March 2011 from £180m a year earlier, as a large drop in the number of letters posted offset a cost-cutting drive.
Group chief executive Moya Greene said Royal Mail's UK Letters & Parcels and International Business lost more than £2m a week in 2010-11 as the public preferred to keep in touch via e-mail and text messaging.
The average Briton now spends just £18 per year on postage, according to Greene, while mobile phone texts comprise 50% of all personal messaging.
'We are honoured to collect and deliver the mail on behalf of households and businesses across the UK. But, our industry, along with our European peers, is in decline,' she said.
Royal Mail has cut about 65,000 full and part-time positions since 2002, including 5,500 in the past year, while a dozen mail centres have closed and a further 16 are set to shut.
The state company last week moved a step closer to privatisation after parliament approved legislation enabling the firm to be sold.
Under the plans, private companies will be allowed to buy up to 90% of Royal Mail Group. Postal workers will receive the other 10% of shares - the largest proportion ever handed out to employees of a state company becoming private.
The British government meanwhile intends to take on the Royal Mail's pension fund, including its hefty deficit, when the group is privatised in 2012.
