Good afternoon, and a very warm welcome to PostNL's Capital Markets Day. It's great to see you with us in the room, and I also would like to say welcome to the ones who are joining us online. Today is an important day for PostNL, and I'm really glad that we are all here. We are hosting this Capital Markets Day at a special location, our Small Parcel Sorting Center in Nieuwegein. This state-of-the-art sorting center was opened in 2021 and is fully robotized. I am Inge Laudy, Manager Investor Relations, and our speakers for today are at my left, Pim Berendsen, our CEO, and Linde Jansen, our CFO. Let me brief you, walk you through the agenda for this afternoon. Pim will start by unveiling our new strategy. Then Pim and Linde together will talk you through the business segments.
Along the way, you will be entertained by some small movies that bring our strategy to life. After that, Linde will take over for the financial ambition, and after a short break, then we will come back to you for a Q&A session, and with that, I'd like to hand over to Pim to get started.
Thank you, Inge, and good afternoon to everyone. It's great to see you all here, and we're excited to share with you our new strategy. And before we go into that new strategy, we'd like to start with a short movie that kind of captures who we are in a few minutes, how we make connections with society and the world around us, and it will explain what drives us all forward. So let's go to the movie first.
What if we dare to think without limits? What if more than 225 years of experience are the key to a new way of connecting? We're building a new future driven by what actually matters to customers, to bring more meaning to lives, to businesses, and to the world. We're putting our experience and network to work, fueling growth that leaves a lasting impact. Through our app, millions arrange deliveries, unlocking new possibilities every day. Limitless shopping, unparalleled convenience. Our locations become places of power, energized by local electricity. Our data builds the foundation for digital assistants that think ahead and unlock opportunities. We build today to define tomorrow. But one thing will never change: we connect people with care, with pride, and as everyone's favorite delivery partner. We're moving from being the fastest to the best, valuable for customers, effortless for consumers, better for the planet.
Growth means choosing what truly matters, being there when it counts, connecting people to smart systems, and never stopping the pursuit of innovation. That's why we deliver with less air, with quieter, cleaner transport, and with a lighter footprint on our planet. Yet one thing remains our greatest value: our people. They deliver on our promise, day and night, always striving for better. We are connected to deliver what drives us all forward.
I think this movie really shows where we stand for our heritage, our people, our ambition, and how we want to move forward. It's just a movie that just gives you a bit of a feeling, but obviously, to steer a company, you need a bit more. You need a clear direction. And that's why we redefined our North Star, which is our lens, in which we bring our strategy into focus and will guide us towards the future. That is exactly what our North Star tries to capture. It's our compass that guides our choices and sets the direction for the years ahead. Now let's look at it. On the top, you see our purpose connected to deliver what drives us all forward. And within the lens, the four strategic pillars are visible: growth, value, innovation, and impact that together define our strategic intent.
We grow our business, create sustainable value, lead through innovation, and make impact that matters. Each of those four pillars we've made tangible. On growth, we want to accelerate growth beyond boundaries together with our customers. We unlock value by optimizing consumer experiences, margin, and better utilization of assets. We drive bold innovation with data, technology, and intelligence. And obviously, we want to create impact that matters for our people, for society, and driving a positive transformation that's built on our foundation, our strong heritage, our drive for change, serving the society and sustainability at our core. And of course, our values, connecting, personal, resourceful, and dedicated, play an important role here. For us, today is really a mark of a new chapter. For decades, we have been a trusted company connecting people, businesses, and society.
That foundation remains strong, but what is different now is the energy and the momentum in which we want to bring it forward. We're not adapting to change. We're shaping it. What feels different today is this momentum. We are stepping up our efforts in every area, from keeping the pace to setting the pace, from heritage to breakthrough performance. This is not business as usual for us. It's a deliberate step change, a breakthrough in how we lead our company forward, and our heritage gives us strength, but our ambition will set us apart. We're convinced that PostNL will again shape transformation in our industry. We're ready to lead that change, not just to keep the pace, but to define it, from complexity to clarity, through speed to scale, and from challenge to solution. That is our momentum that we'll bring into this new strategy.
From that purpose and that strategic intent, we go to the strategic objectives of the three business segments that we will use now going forward. In e-commerce, we'll go from a Volume to Value strategy through a much more differentiated, segmented commercial approach and better and smarter network utilization. In platforms, we really see great organic growth opportunities through our asset-light business models. And in mail, obviously, we need to transform the mail service to a future-proof postal service that can be sustainable going forward. We manage those transformational elements through 10 strategic projects, portfolio priorities. I'll come back to those later on, but that's how we manage the change.
So three segments, three strategic objectives run through 10 portfolio priorities on which there are initiatives, epics, features by which we drive the change, leading towards four goals: our financial KPIs, Net Promoter Score ambition, carbon efficiency targets, and employee engagement. This also gives you the structure of what we will be discussing today. And this is how we will cascade our strategy down from purpose to goals, and everything in between we'll touch upon in the next segments to clarify why we believe we can go there and how we plan to do so. This slide clearly indicates that we can build on our strong heritage. We've seen many transformations in the past before. We quite often played a leading role in those transformations, and we can really leverage on that heritage and our transformational mindset.
We've been at the heart of society for over 225 years, have been at the forefront of transformation, trusted by and through generations. We're there every day in every street. We lead with purpose. We foster our people, and we want to make a change and not just following, but leading. You all know a bit about us, but just a few key elements. On the left-hand side, you see the various networks that we operate in. On the right-hand side, our key figures: EUR 3.3 billion of revenue, EUR 53 million normalized EBIT, more than 32,000 employees that currently are working for us. Certainly, we have to define this new strategy on a quite demanding market backdrop with a lot of developments around the sector, but also at the world at large.
So we've taken into account the general economic conditions and global trade elements: labor shortages, higher inflation levels, trade policies impacting certain trade lanes. We do see, obviously, consolidation in the e-commerce market, where platformization and the rise of marketplaces lead to bigger clients becoming even bigger. There has been and will continue to be great competition in the markets in which we operate. At the same time, consumer expectations are shifting, demanding more control, better ease of use, stronger digital connections. That has driven the digital transformation of PostNL. We're making the next steps from digital transformation to an AI-first strategy. I'll come to that later. And of course, we're in discussions on the universal service regulation changes that we seek to get to a sustainable mail business.
If we then go to our ambitions, and redefining our future is really driven by the Breakthrough 2028, as we call it, with the ambition to get to a normalized EBIT of more than EUR 175 million by 2028. How do we get there? On e-commerce, from Volume to Value, more segmented customer approach, differentiated and tiered propositions from Next Day to Best Day . We'll explain that later on a bit more. Smart steering of those volumes to make use of the network capacity even better and share those capabilities across the teams to consistently work on better yield and yield management. Platforms, we see growth opportunities, expanding digital-first and asset-light platforms, Spring and MyParcel, predominantly focused on intra-Europe growth. And in mail, we're taking all necessary steps to create a future-proof mail business.
Of course, leveraging on our brand, our capabilities, our customer-facing platforms, using what we already have and accelerating in the space of data and AI-first. We're going to put a bit more spotlight on our innovation efforts in a minute, because that is another area where I think there are great opportunities for us going forward. To drive this strategy towards execution, we, of course, will work on the performance management culture. We'll make some changes in the structure and will assist the senior management teams to cascade this down to shop floor so that everybody truly understands how they can contribute to the strategy that we've just set. As indicated already before, we will be reporting over three business segments as of January 1st, being e-commerce, platforms, and mail as of January 2026.
This slide captures the six strategic objectives for our business segments and for our enablers. The three in the middle we already discussed for e-commerce, platforms, and mail. The three on the right are what we call the enablers. So ESG, take care of our people, environment, and society. Data and tech, simplifying and accelerating our data and AI and innovation beyond delivery, exploring new opportunities by stretching our core, and the color coding on the right-hand side, you will see back in the slides going forward, because we'll now discuss a bit more of the enablers and then go to the business segments a little later. On ESG, it's of course not something separate, but ingrained in our strategy and a foundation for everything we do.
The three icons on the left-hand side are the sustainable development goals that are relevant for us: climate action, responsible consumption and production, and decent work and economic growth. And of course, we want to improve our environmental footprint by reducing emissions. The targets we've set will follow on the next slide. We want to create positive impact on the people across the value chain and drive long-term sustainable business value going forward. Clearly, and that's also what the movie said, everything starts with our men and women on the streets. 32,000 colleagues. We're really proud to be a responsible employer, providing opportunities for all and ensuring that people can thrive. It's their commitment that really powers our success, which also means that we'll need to keep an eye on a healthy and safe working environment. We will continue to invest in to improve that.
Of course, it's important to attract and retain the right talent to make this transformation happen. That's also why we're proud to still be ranked as a top 15 employer in the Netherlands. On the ESG target side, on the right-hand side, you see our SBTi validated targets to get to net zero by 2040. We want to go to a 45% reduction of Scope 3 emissions by 2030 compared to 2021, which is a 90% reduction on the elements of Scope 1 and 2 that we control much more ourselves. Those are kind of the validated targets by SBTi that are ingrained in this entire strategy. Data and tech have been crucial, and we try to simplify and accelerate by using the data and AI capabilities that we have.
This slide shows the journey that we've been on, and very many of you have seen parts of that. Quite early on, we started to migrate to the clouds, then transformed to a self-engineering organization, embedded agile ways of working in how we run the change. Our DevOps teams are crucial there. That increases the flexibility and the pace in which we can deploy new solutions. Last year, we've been exploring AI on very many different elements, and we're now accelerating towards an AI-first strategy. And we're also committing EUR 2 million to that change because we truly believe we can accelerate and simplify on key business drivers through this technology shift. And that's basically also on this slide. So we've embedded this in business domains. We've created a Center of Excellence that defines and drives very many different use cases. It's around four transformational streams.
Of course, you need to do foundational work to be able to apply algorithms in your business. It requires AI governance and digital ethics, but also a partner ecosystem. You are not able to develop all those tools yourself. So with whom do you want to cooperate, and how do you structure those business models? Value execution. We've been using, by now, I would say, a couple of hundred use cases. We learned what works and doesn't work. So from testing and doing those use cases, we're now scaling them to make the impact on our primary and secondary business processes. And it also requires you to train your key people to be able to use these new technology developments. And that's what we're doing as well.
Then a theme that has not been so much in the spotlight over the last year or so, but we've been working on quite extensively, is our innovation and innovation beyond delivery. And we're looking always for new opportunities, stretching our core. So not walking away from our core, but seeing what kind of capabilities we have we could stretch to different marketplaces. We innovate with intention to make every step faster, smarter, and more meaningful. Our platform never stands still and evolves with the needs of today and the vision of tomorrow. That leads to various innovation propositions. In the three icons that you see are either e-commerce, AI, tech, and neighborhoods. So it's not that we're just responding to the rise of online shoppers. We're redefining how e-commerce works. We collaborate with partners and platforms to build smarter, more sustainable e-commerce solutions.
From sales to checkout and returns, we're defining new propositions. We put intelligence at the heart of everything, not just to move faster, but to move smarter, working with colleagues and experts to develop smarter operations, personalized services to create new value, to serve our clients better today and help them grow tomorrow. We're not entering the market to follow, but to change it, building the new ecosystems with leading partners to create smart, profitable solutions for neighborhoods, for people, and for us. We've defined six domains or areas of development to help shape our future, where we see great opportunities for innovation: identity wallet, digital identity propositions, social commerce. How will that evolve? What does it take?
On the AI side, we're building new products with AI, but also testing agentic AI, not only for our own processes, but also how we can use our data and our insights to create agents that could help our clients. O n the neighborhood side of things, being where we are, Number Null is a corporation that we have with communities that really start to create nicer, better communities around energy, mobility, and increasing the real spending power of those neighborhoods by working together. And we see various propositions that we're testing there around energy, around mobility, where we will also partner and co-create with others to see what we can do there. Let's see why it doesn't move. So now I can't get to the next slide. Oh, here we are.
This is a movie that will start to give a sense of what we can do with AI.
For over 225 years, PostNL has kept the community connected: people and businesses, letters and parcels, trust and progress. From the moment her order is placed, our AI reconfigures the network, forecasting volumes, reallocating resources, and reshaping flows, and if there is a better solution, AI delivers it instantly. Each decision, faster, smarter, cheaper. That's how this technology helps us scale efficiently in a cost-sensitive market. AI directs millions of parcels a day, learning in real time, recognizing, rerouting, responding. Unlike off-the-shelf systems, our models are trained on decades of PostNL logistics, Dutch complexity. No one else can replicate that. Personal delivery, powered by real-time precision. AI plans it. We deliver it. Built on proprietary data, our artificial intelligence doesn't just drive efficiency. It protects our margins and unlocks new growth.
This isn't just tech. It's insight. It's foresight. It's advantage. We're not adapting to AI. We're building around it. AI first, because what worked yesterday won't carry us through tomorrow. Technology scales, but people connect. Our AI empowers our people to serve better, move smarter, and stay closer to our business and consumer customers than anyone else. Because at PostNL, the future isn't just automated. It's human-enabled. PostNL, AI first, always close.
As you saw in this movie, which was completely AI-generated, there are still a few errors and bloopers in it. And we will continue to learn. A bit too quick there, but there's still plenty to learn also on the AI side, which clearly is the same if we talk about us as an organization.
The important thing is that we just keep moving forward with the right mindset, becoming performance-driven while embracing that transformation. That starts with strategic performance management, an instrument for agile strategy execution. That's also why those 10 strategic priorities are so important, because through those 10, we drive the change through initiatives, epics, and features. We'll focus on simplification, delivery, accountability, matching incentives to key priorities, and to continue to invest in that transformational capability. Of course, that requires focused leadership that know what to do, but also how they do and do not contribute to the elements of the North Star. We're working to get to an even better performance management culture by making sure that there's true ownership and a drive to deliver the tangibles, the results that we're looking for, and really through empowerment of the teams with full end-to-end responsibility.
That also will require us to adapt structure and process based on the strategic priorities that we've set, and that's what we'll be doing in the near future as well. These are then those 10 strategic portfolio priorities. I will not go in that much detail, but they cover the three strategic ambitions of both e-commerce platforms and mail, so for instance, Seamless Services is really about easy onboarding of customers, right information at the right time to reduce churn. Really, this is where we make a distinction, and commercial success is driven through it. E-commerce portfolio drives the change towards which propositions do we need to offer to which type of clients, optimizing the yield and margin profiles. Network efficiency is obviously a combination of initiatives that want to reduce the cost base of the parcel.
And so we've got 10 of those that all have their own objectives, and you can drill down towards the various initiatives that contribute to the change that will then subsequently help us to get to the financial ambition that we've set at more than EUR 175 million by 2028. And that is this slide. So we believe with everything that we've looked at, the people that are around us, we can get to EUR 4 billion of revenue by 2028, a normalized EBIT beyond EUR 175 million, translating to a free cash flow of more than EUR 75 million, and a return on invested capital that covers the average cost of capital by getting to more than 12%.
On NPS, we want to remain the number one party, both at customers' and consumers' preference, and the carbon efficiency goals, reducing the Scope 1, 2, and 3 by 20%-25% by 2028, which is, of course, another horizon than on the ESG slide, because there we were looking at 2030 and 2040 objectives based on our SBTi objectives. And we want to improve the employee engagement by 5 percentage points in the next two and a half years. That basically covers the strategy at group level and all elements that together need to get us to the financial objectives that we've set. Then we go to the various segments, and we start with e-commerce, where the strategic intent is to go from a Volume to Value through a differentiated approach and smart network utilization.
The topics that we will be discussing in this segment are, of course, looking back to the market dynamics, the leading position that we have, how we expect the market to develop, how we think our customer base will develop over time, what role consumers do play in this marketplace, and how we adapt to that evolving market, and, of course, we'll also look into Belgium, because what we mean by domestic, our e-commerce business encompasses also our Belgium propositions. We have a leadership position which is built on a few very strong assets. We have the highest customer experience with a strong brand. We're the favorite deliverer for consumers with a distinctive distance to the number two player of 18 points. We're the most reliable deliverer, 89% of parcels delivered on time, and a trusted brand.
If you think about our omnichannel offerings, we've got top-rated consumer app, more than 9 million accounts, the most dense, largest 2C network in the Netherlands, which serves more than 100,000 clients, 370 million parcels delivered last year. Clearly, the number one in the Netherlands and the number two player in Belgium. Scale and sustainability as comparative differentiators, too. 5,600 retail locations, currently 1,200 APMs, striving to get to 1,600 by the end of the year, and obviously, something we're very proud of is that we're the most sustainable e-commerce delivery company in the world, according to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. The market in which e-commerce operates is still a market that is expected to grow. From left to right, what drives the growth?
The most important growth driver is online penetration, assumed to increase by 0.4%-0.7% through consumer behavior, market players, marketplaces, social platforms, plus the retail market growth that will be a function of GDP growth in the Netherlands, more or less, that gives you the addressable Dutch market expected to grow by roughly 5% per year. We maintain a leading market share position, although we might lose a bit of share given our shift from volume to value. And then on top of that, we've got the Belgium and C2X flows that get us to an average volume growth of roughly 5% per year as a key assumption that drives the e-commerce business going forward. And certainly, we've seen changing market dynamics in this sector, where, let's say, a decade ago, market growth was hyper-growth.
The source of growth was really retail shoppers getting online, not so much competition yet, and also where our clients were focused on growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. That has now changed. Money is not cheap anymore, so they need to translate that also to earnings growth, EBITDA. So it's about margin, it's about retention, it's about cross-selling, it's about differentiating more and less relevant type of consumers that you serve. And the market has changed through those increasing client concentrations. The bigger clients, the Asian giants, have taken market share and are growing faster than others. The importance of consumer experience, where do you buy, is a function of how much do you control, where do you find your delivery preferences, what's the ease of use, how friendly is the checkout process. And those have also led to changing consumer behavior.
What we really see is that the ordering moments have become much more concentrated. Of course, we always had the end-of-year peak around Black Friday, Sinterklaas, but now we also see those moments being much more concentrated around the dates on which the salary has been received, much more spent in the weekends, leading to unequal flows on Monday, Tuesday, and of course, a rise in cross-border shopping that has accelerated that profile. And that's then the picture that results. So if you look at the left-hand side, as you see by 2019-2020, the development of the client concentration, where obviously the top 50 has gained market share, marketplaces have become more important at the expense of other, mainly SME type of customers in that space. If you then compare the client concentration in the Netherlands with other countries, it's still at a lower end.
Now, 34% of top three players, while China is at 73%. We do expect this to evolve to somewhere in the middle of this graph, around 45%- 50%. We would expect the top three to gain from others. Of course, that also leads to pressure on the profit pool, where you see the margin per parcel, platformization of SME, because they lack the reach to sell. They move to the marketplaces. They will accelerate the growth of marketplaces even further. Those customer segments have been the segments with the margin profile as being the most positive. The marketplaces and Asian platforms have been growing with a lower contribution, and the other platforms a bit in between. That growth or that development is expected to continue, and that's also why it's so important not to chase just volume, but to differentiate. Otherwise, you will erode profitability quite quickly.
So the strategy must focus on capturing value, segmenting customers effectively, and aligning propositions with where margins can be created. That's the essence of moving from volume to value, then let's step away from the web shops and then go to the consumers, the shoppers, and the receivers of the parcels that we deliver, and consumers are increasingly at the center of the e-commerce chain, and their expectations are shifting, and this shapes how web shops and logistical providers must respond, and you see there's a significant difference in a happy shopper and an unhappy shopper in terms of lifetime value, five times more. You also see that delivery drives customer experience because those are key drivers of consumer experience. The biggest categories are shipping costs, product quality, shipping speed, and returns policies, and you also see that basically 20% of web shop buyers drive 80% of their value.
So there's more than enough room to differentiate your propositions. Next to that, although for years, next-day delivery has been the standard, this slide shows that consumer behavior is shifting here too. On the left, you see delivery speed expectations. As delivery takes more days, satisfaction gradually declines. But importantly, many consumers remain satisfied for up to three days, willing to wait three days before becoming impatient. If you talk about receiver needs, they just want to be in control through the retailer checkout. It's not necessarily next day that is determined. Flexibility, the flexibility in delivery options at checkout that allow platforms to share benefit with longer windows to consumers are viable. Delivery providers benefit through better network utilization and can incentivize platforms to lower delivery costs as well.
We've done that research, and we truly see clear indications that there is room to move from Next Day to Best Day. That doesn't mean that we'll not have next-day delivery, but it allows you to give more flexibility in checkout to create more equal flow, which leads to an even more efficient e-commerce value chain that also can lead to different value distribution along that chain. A crucial change towards in our strategy. So that's what consumers think is important. On the customer segments, there are certainly different delivery needs too, from simple, straightforward to premium services to even beyond that, propositions that create stickiness and create efficacy on unique offerings. And we really want to show with this picture that for a while, this industry has been focused on almost one size fits all. Next day, this is the proposition, this is the price.
This picture indicates that there's truly different needs in different e-commerce companies depending on where they play, how they play, whether or not they are marketplaces or smaller retailers. And we believe we can better differentiate our service offerings to them to make them more successful whilst at the same time creating a better margin profile for us too. So this e-commerce market continues to grow, but in a different way and with evolving market dynamics. Our customer base has matured, shifting focus to consumer retention and profitability. The emphasis has been on speed, no longer aligned to demand. Most purchases are not that urgent that next day is required. Purchasing mainly in the weekend, combined with next-day delivery, puts unnecessary network pressures on network and also not the most sustainable way to deliver parcels. Delivery experience remains a critical factor in which you can differentiate yourself from other carriers.
So our customers ideally choose between cost and experience depending on the shipment and what it is that they want to receive. Consumers are open to the shift from Next Day to Best Day, provided that benefits are shared and they are in control. So that is why we say this is good news, and our aim to get to a much more differentiated approach, both in terms of customers as consumers and create tiered propositions based on much more rigid segmented customer demands, will allow us to improve the margins in the E-commerce space. This is altogether what we call Yield Management, and we've got a video that shows how the market evolved over time and what we now believe the Yield Management approach to be. Let's take a look.
E-commerce in the Netherlands and Belgium has grown rapidly over years.
It is an ecosystem between consumers, customers, and logistics providers like PostNL, and all of these players depend on each other. But the system, as it stands today, is under pressure and no longer sustainable. There are several reasons for that. In a tight labor market, rising costs and the impact of high inflation since 2022 are weighing heavily on the sector, and because this is a labor-intensive industry, we want everyone in the chain to work under healthy and attractive conditions. At PostNL, we invest in professional, satisfied deliverers and sorters, and we want to keep this work appealing for the future. At the same time, the e-commerce market has become more concentrated and increasingly globalized. Traditional web shops are facing new dynamics and competition from dominant international platforms. This is driving a price race that squeezes margins. Meanwhile, consumers are more digital, and expectations are shifting.
People no longer just want speed. They expect choice and convenience. They want transparency, responsibility, and above all, they want to be in control. A happy consumer will return to order again online. The logistics chain is also under pressure. Labor is scarce and more expensive. Streets are congested, and environmental requirements are rising. On top of that, parcel order flows are unbalanced with heavy peaks in the weekends, around salary moments, and in the festive season, while other periods have less volumes. Pushing everything into next-day delivery, which has become the standard, makes the chain unnecessarily costly and less sustainable. Keeping this e-commerce market healthy requires continuous investment in green solutions, in IT security, and in improving the experience for consumers, who are the true engine of this chain. Without change and with limited earning capacity, these investments are at risk.
That is why there is a joint responsibility to drive change. The model that once worked during the years of hypergrowth no longer fits today's reality. Change is essential for consumers, for web shops, for employees, and for the entire e-commerce chain to continue to invest in a future-proof e-commerce model. And as said, that's a joint responsibility where we as PostNL will take our role as leading player in the sector.
So for us, it's really clear. We believe that's a joint responsibility in the supply chain to create that sustainable e-commerce future. We will clearly take the lead and make the changes we believe we need to make, and some of them we already discussed. Some others will follow later. Of course, we call and lead the others to make the same changes in that marketplace.
We believe the time to act and to change those dynamics is now. We've got a clear plan that we will subsequently execute. And with that, I hand over to Linde, and she will take us through the remaining elements of e-commerce. Are you good?
Yes. Thank you, Pim. And before moving on, also a warm welcome on my behalf for the people over here, of course, and also for the people online. So looking forward to today's presentation. As mentioned by Pim, we are facing challenges in the e-commerce market, and I will talk you through today how we are going to tackle that. So really, the action plan. And that is what we are calling our Margin Engine. That are four pillars where we drive action to get from volume to value strategy.
Here, just an overview, one by one in the next slides, I will go through this Margin Engine. The first pillar is a stronger commercial engine. Like Pim mentioned, this is about segmenting our customers more clearly and offering tiered value propositions. I will talk you through a bit later how. Secondly is delivering a distinctive experience when and where it matters most. We want to remain the most trusted and preferred logistics provider, and we will tell you how we are going to leverage on that. The third pillar is being competitive at cost, leveraging on our strategic assets. That can be in the area of our out-of-home strategy, but also in reducing our network costs and rebalancing our cost structure. The last pillar is about stepping up in steering and teaming capabilities.
So, how we are going to drive this change with our teams and people, that's data-driven and also with the right tools available for our salespeople. Let's move one by one to the different pillars, starting with the stronger commercial engine. This slide shows how we put that into practice. Of course, like Pim said, it is not a one size fits all. We are moving to a tiered value propositions that reflect both customer needs and commercial needs. How we do that? At the base level, you see we offer simple and reliable service with fixed delivery times, with standard delivery hours, full range of delivery options, and track and trace. This covers the essentials at low cost. On top of that, we have our premium tier. And what does that include?
It's the premium tier: more flexible in fleet, a dedicated support team, higher priorities at peaks, and high-performance integrations. Here, we want to monetize that customers pay for the extras they get, and the last on the top that are adding our digital services. Here, we want to differentiate across segments such as checkout solutions and value-adding insights. By proactively including these services, we create more stickiness for customers and more profitability for us, and this is how we strengthen the commercial engine: by tailoring value to segments and strengthening each customer's contributions fairly. A second important element of the first pillar is how we utilize our network. This slide shows the challenge clearly for the day, for the week, and for the year. We see that the peaks get more frequent and get higher, like Pim also mentioned earlier on, while at other times, capacity is underutilized.
When capacity drops below a certain level, the margin gets negative. To address this, we are building a more agile, data-driven distribution model supported with capacity-based incentives. How does that work? Well, starting with the day level, looking at the day, our objective is to capture more volumes with early feed- in and applying a premium for later injections during the day. We establish this via pricing and contractual agreements. Moving on to the week level, we use flexible propositions to spread volumes more evenly, balancing between early and late in the week, for example, by steering towards delivery day choice and promoting our out-of-home network. The year level. Here, we apply price mechanisms to manage seasonality and increase utilization during low volume periods. This approach helps us run a healthier network, better balanced, more efficient, and ultimately more sustainable.
As addressed by Pim, this is not just for us, but for the whole ecosystem of e-commerce. A key element to make this happen is obviously to make sure that we move from Next Day to Best Day. The idea is simple. Instead of only offering next-day delivery, consumers are given an additional option in the checkout for an extended delivery window at a different price. That creates choice for the consumer and more flexibility in our network. As I just showed, the unequal flow puts a lot of pressure on our network, and shifting from Next Day to Best Day is helping that. By the way, good to know that the change from Next Day to Best Day does apply for the consumer, not for us as PostNL. We still get our infeed during a certain day of the week, and we deliver next day.
It's more a different day that we get the products delivered to us, but how are we going to do that? Of course, that may be your question. We are going to run pilots together with our customers where we are trying to test certain hypotheses, and we are checking with different customers, different segments, what is working, what are certain prices to check certain price elasticity, or is something working in a specific product category while it's not working with others, and that we are doing together with our customers, and we do that via pilots, which run in three different phases. We start with validating proof points, we scale up and are learning, and lastly, we gain value, and not just for us, as said, but for the whole e-commerce ecosystem.
By running this pilot, we get answers to those specific questions, and we learn along the way to optimize this model of moving to best day. So, in short, we want to be the market shaper here in this area of moving to best day, and here we shape it for the whole ecosystem as it is a win-win for everyone. Consumers are more happy, web shops also get a better e-com flow, and for us, we get less turbulence in our flow and also more profitability in the end. Then moving on to the second pillar, which is the consumer experience. As Pim mentioned, we have a very strong position here on our consumer experience, and we want to leverage on that. We drive value for our customers by explaining the value we bring to our consumers.
When we have happy consumers, they order more, and that will also give value to our customers. How do we do that? Digital tools play a key role here. By integrating conversational AI, we are creating fast, digital, and seamless I-get-help journey for our consumers, and on the left, you see the different phases of the consumer journey. From I manage my account, I buy, I follow, and I change, but the most important one is I receive. That's where expectations are highest and where we can create the difference and leverage on our strong position over here. At the same time, we are also more personalizing the consumer experience for the I-receive journey, making it easier and more flexible. A central enabler here is the PostNL ID, which allows us to use our large account base to create personal and efficient delivery experience.
This is how we set the standard in consumer experience. The third pillar is on being competitive at cost. This slide shows how we prepare our network for volume growth without significant CAPEX until 2028. On the left side, you see the developments over 2028 from a volume point of view. From 2026 onwards, additional measures come here into play: new distribution centers, optimization of the small parcel center where we are today, extra measures in sorting centers, and we continue to improve the equal flow to avoid overcapacity at peaks. The foundation, however, remains our strong infrastructure. On the right, you see the map showing this strong infrastructure. Our current footprint in the Netherlands and Belgium consists of, among others, 29 automated sorting centers. So, in short, what are we doing here? We stretch and optimize what we already have so we can grow volume without heavy investments.
Another important pillar of being competitive at cost is our out-of-home strategy. We have a clear ambition here for our out-of-home. We want to grow our out-of-home delivery from 12.5% in 2024 to over 20% to around 20% in 2028. The flywheel on this slide shows clearly the whole value across the ecosystem. Let me start on the right with the growing adoption. As adoption is growing quickly, more and more consumers are actively choosing an out-of-home option in the app, and large web shops integrate lockers into their checkout. Moving on to the consumers. Also, for the consumers, this is a win-win. Consumers are highly satisfied with our out-of-home options, reflected in a very strong NPS. That satisfaction translates into loyalty, and they return more often to the web shops, which in turn drives revenue for our customers. As said, a win-win.
Moving on the left side, our side. For us, out-of-home is a very efficient delivery model. It means fewer stops, better utilization of our network, and a lower carbon footprint. Importantly, the costs for locker delivery are roughly 30% lower versus delivery at home. Good to know that PUDOs also benefit because parcel handling becomes simpler and less labor-intensive. That brings me to the last number four: accelerating our investments. It's clear why we invest in our out-of-home strategy. We want to add over 600 APLs towards 3,600 in 2028, which is quite a step up. This is alongside a stable PUDO network, which together creates a strong network, ensuring flexibility and creates an efficient capacity management. In short, our out-of-home network ticks all the boxes, is absolutely a win-win for our whole e-commerce system.
It meets consumer demands and builds one of the key pillars of our e-commerce strategy. I have the same now. Oh, yeah, it works again. Sorry. Then moving on to another element of our cost being competitive at cost, namely our organic costs. On the left side, you see clearly our challenge. The orange line assumes an increase in total of your total cost per parcel over the years, growing up to 5%-10%. Without organic cost increases, all our cost savings measures and efficiency improvements would have led to a decline in our cost per parcel by 10%-15%, and that is reflected by the blue line. So, significant cost increases on your organic costs mean that efficiency gains are essential, which we address by strong and strict cost control. On the slide, we have highlighted some examples.
We have a very strong record of achieving cost-saving initiatives, and that is something which we will continue to do over the coming years. That ranges from changing our operating model to further automating and digitizing. And we will continue these cost savings along the coming years to 2028 as well. Then addressing the labor force, building on what Pim mentioned earlier. Our biggest challenge in the sector is labor. It's tight competition for people is high, and costs for flexible labor are rising. At the same time, compliance demands are heavily increasing. This creates pressure on both stability and affordability to our people. And that's why we have a strong focus on working conditions and a stable workforce. Our people are at the heart of our operations. Investing in them is crucial to run the business and keep costs under control.
On the slide, we have highlighted some examples of what we are doing in this area. From implementing new technologies, think of the tilters we have implemented over the past year, up until new infeed or adjusted infeed requirements to improve the workload and the heaviness of the workload for our people. These steps strengthen safety, engagement, and efficiency, and make our workforce more future-proof. Then moving on to our last pillar of our Margin Engine, which is a super important one. That is how we make the system work with our people and with our capabilities. This slide shows the whole framework from our strategic goals up until execution.
Actually, the idea behind this are the exact broad and actionable insights which drive our behavior and, at the same time, strict steering mechanisms from both the commercial and operational side, which help us to execute our goals and deliver on our goals. And most important to highlight here on the slide is a strong organizational foundation: the right structure, governance, culture, processes, and the data and tools to steer it all effectively. And that is what we are heavily investing in, also with the programs like Pim explained, our 10 strategic programs , but that is driving the culture change which is needed to bring this strategy to life. And the last and the very important part of our action on the margin engine is our yield management toolbox. The previous slide covered our overall framework from steering and to the right organizational mindset.
But this slide zooms in on the exact tools we have at hand to make it happen. The objective is clear. We should monetize capacity by optimizing our customer and product mix. And by structural programs, we move towards really revenue management. And the toolbox consists of four elements. First of all, general price increases and indexation. This is to mitigate the inflationary pressures. Secondly, we are strict on contractual clauses to protect pricing where actual volumes differ from predicted volumes, but also stricter adherence to our contract conditions. A third element are surcharges. These are applied for peak volumes, oversized items, or shipments that are less suitable for sorting. These ensure incremental costs are covered by the client. And lastly, our differentiated commercial propositions and prices. Tailored modular offers supported by granular cost driver insights.
That together allows us to set the right price for the right customer segment, including optimizing the overall e-commerce chain with a better equal flow , building on what Pim explained before. And all that together in our yield management toolbox is what we apply to make our margin engine work. And that brings me to the end of our margin engine. But like Pim said, we have more. Part of our e-commerce is Belgium. Belgium is our second home market and a super important growth market for us. On the left side, you see the parcel market in Belgium, where you see volumes ranging from 316 million in 2022 towards 381 million in 2024. And we expect it to further grow 4%-5% towards 2028. Belgium is still highly dominated by non-Belgian players, with imports taking the largest share of the market.
Domestic and export volumes are roughly equal, with exports slightly ahead. The pie on the left bottom shows the split of our volume in Belgium, which is mostly import, and that means import for Belgium, so that means that Dutch platforms where it's ordered and where we deliver at Belgium homes, and then in the middle, you see our assets and networks, how we make that happen. We already have achieved a significant increase in NPS scores, and as just explained, a high NPS score is a very strong asset to build on, and that gives us a lot of leverage to further expand our growth in Belgium. Our networks consist of two fully automated sorting centers, and we have six distribution-only centers as well. This means there is room to optimize infrastructure to accommodate further growth, and what and how are we going to accelerate the growth?
We want to accelerate to outperform the market growth in Belgium through, among others, strengthening export into Europe via our Spring operation and pushing our out-of-home strategy in Belgium as well. The execution of that is shown by the six pillars at the right bottom. That is our, I would say, toolkit to make it happen. Together, this results in growth and value capturing in this second home market for us. And that brings me to the end slide of the e-commerce business segment. Let me wrap up our e-commerce story. Our strategy is clearly to move from volume to value. We do that via four pillars of our Margin Engine. That is strengthening our commercial engine, so a more differentiated customer approach, tiered propositions, moving from Next Day to Best Day , and to smooth flows and reduce costs.
Secondly, we want to be distinctive when and where it matters most, giving consumers control by improving the critical I-receive journey and deploying digital tools to enhance experience, and thirdly, being competitive on costs. Smarter sorting operations, better alignment of resources, and targeted investments in technology will help us run more efficiently, will help us run the network more efficiently, then lastly, a step up in steering and teaming. Active revenue and capacity management, as just explained, supported by a strong organic foundation with a transformational mindset, will help us give more control over our yield and margin. This is how we build a more profitable and resilient e-commerce business. With that, I have covered what we are reshaping and where we are the market shaper for our e-commerce.
PostNL obviously has much more than our e-commerce segment, and we want to explore our international growth opportunities via the asset-like platform business. So let me hand over to Pim to talk you through the platforms segment.
So having covered e-commerce and shown you how we are reshaping this domestic model from volume to value, it is now time to look at our other exciting part being our platform business around asset-like business models that we have. Platforms are a natural extension of our strategy. They connect merchants to carriers, to consumers, cross-border, scalable, flexible, digitally enabled, and they complement our asset-heavy networks while opening up new opportunities for organic growth. I will take you through the first part of this story, explaining the market dynamics and the different models.
Tijs Reumerman, my colleague, managing director of Cross Border, will then show you how this works in practice a little while later. If we go to the markets that define these, then obviously e-commerce is by nature digital and cross-border. It's blurring the traditional lines between domestic and international logistics. Customers now need access to delivery solutions that are internationally integrated and competitive. They don't think about borders. They expect European or even global reach as a standard. At the same time, merchant expectations have shifted. Shipping must be simple, scalable, flexible, multi-carrier. It has to be API-first, real-time data, full visibility in the chain where your parcel is. E-commerce growth across Europe clearly continues, while cross-border growth is much faster, 1.5x faster than domestic growth in these markets. That's really where the acceleration is happening.
That's also why, given these changing demands and changing market dynamics, logistic models need to evolve. That's what we go and talk about on this slide. We've got two distinctive business models that we'll detail out for you. Spring delivers end-to-end cross-border logistics, using local presence, leveraging flexible partner networks for first, middle, and last-mile delivery. It enables merchants to scale, capturing inter-growth e-commerce growth. Asia and Americas unlock growth by feeding into the European network, broadening the services, diversifying origins, customers, and destinations. MyParcel is a 100% digital merchant platform. It connects carriers, shop systems, marketplaces, all through one interface. It scales fast with very low CAPEX and strong unit economics. Two business models, both built for digital e-commerce, both designed for scale. It's a model with clearly distinctive valuation characteristics. Why do those asset-like platforms scale differently from our asset-heavy businesses?
It connects merchants through technology, API-first, choice, scalability, adaptability. It's asset-light, so the only real assets are the digital attributes that are required to make those connections. It allows you for rapid market entry at relatively low capital intensity. It actually offers the orchestration of the logistical flows by using assets and capabilities of others. It gives an end-to-end digital solution from order management through fulfillment to delivery, and the margins develop while scaling volume with limited operational risk. And if you look at valuations of various platforms, they significantly vary, of course, from the more asset-heavy business models that are being valued. Those asset-light models are quite often valued on revenue or gross profit multiples, emphasizing growth and margin leverage. Asset-heavy carriers are obviously valued on EBITDA or EBIT multiples.
Those digital brokers achieve higher valuations due to the scalability, marginal costs that are being low, and the ecosystem effects as a consequence of growth, and revenue growth and profit multiples allow for higher valuations at growth states without immediate higher profit margins. They reward scalability, growth potential, and margin upside in capital-light models, so not only allow these business models extra growth opportunities in Europe, in Asia, to Europe for PostNL, we also believe they drive part of the equity story in terms of valuation dynamics. Tijs will now explain to you in more detail how those business models work in practice.
Welcome at IMEC, our international mail and e-commerce center, the heart of our cross-border network. This is where international parcels from around the world enter PostNL's ecosystem. From here, we process, clear, and route them into Europe. To give you a closer look at how our model Spring and MyParcel connect merchants and carriers worldwide, let's watch the following animation.
PostNL meets the challenges of cross-border and digital e-commerce with two platforms: Spring and MyParcel. From the very first order, many merchants ship beyond their borders with multiple carriers because e-commerce today is by nature cross-border and digital. But that also means challenges like customs, VAT, multiple carriers, delivery expectations. Especially for SMEs, logistics can become a barrier. PostNL meets this challenge with two complementary platforms built for scale, simplicity, and flexibility. Spring is our international logistics engine, active in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. With operational hubs across three continents and a network of 230 trusted partners in 190 destinations, we connect merchants to the world. This asset-light model means we don't need to duplicate infrastructure.
Instead, we leverage local expertise and partner capabilities for first, middle, and last-mile delivery. From customs clearance to duty-paid options and local returns, Spring simplifies cross-border e-commerce, enabling seamless, reliable, and cost-effective delivery anywhere your customers are, and when shipment volumes grow internationally, Spring helps merchants scale with efficiency, global reach, and the right services to meet any customer need. MyParcel is our digital merchant platform. It offers plug-and-play access to domestic and cross-border shipping via multiple carriers, all in one place. Merchants integrate with ease via web shop plugins, marketplace APIs, or ERP connections. They manage shipments, labels, returns, and tracking, all from a single, intuitive interface. In addition, the platform provides deep insights and carrier performance comparisons, helping merchants and their customers to make the best choices and achieve the best experience. Both models are capital-light and margin-scalable.
Spring earns per shipment and service fees, while MyParcel also generates platform subscriptions. Spring and MyParcel support merchants along their entire growth journey, from first shipment to international scale. One ecosystem, two engines built for digital scalability, margin leverage, and seamless merchant experience, from plug-and-play onboarding to complex global delivery.
As the animation video showed, our platform business has grown into a truly global operation. We now run 20 distribution hubs across three continents, and we are connected to more than 230 partner carriers serving 190 destinations. Merchants can access over 120,000 drop-off points through our network globally, and this skill translates into strong commercial traction. Revenue in 2024 was more than EUR 700 million. On top of that, we see clear momentum in our local platform activity, with strong recurring revenues and over 25,000 e-commerce customers and more than 50 integrated carriers already connected.
This is powered by a dedicated team of around 750 colleagues worldwide. While our reach is global, our strength comes from local expertise, combining international skill with strong on-the-ground presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. This combination of global skill and local presence gives us the ability to serve merchants of every size, wherever they are and wherever they want to grow. Let me zoom in on our first platform, Spring. Its strength lies in its hybrid model, combining asset-light partnerships, physical hubs, and local sales teams. This gives us the best of both worlds. Partnerships keep us flexible. We can scale up or down, open or close trade lanes, and adapt quickly to regulations, for example. Our hubs provide consolidation, efficiency, quality control, and customer expertise, solving pain points pure digital brokers cannot cover.
With local sales teams, we help merchants navigate through customs, VAT, and delivery choices with real hands on the ground. That is the sweet spot where Spring differentiates itself: digital skill, physical reliability, and local expertise. In the Americas, we're capturing growing e-commerce flows from North America into Europe and from Canada into the U.S. We build partnerships, strengthen lanes, and provide custom solutions that give merchants easier access to cross-border trade. In Asia, our focus is to feed our domestic NL and Belgium network, but also our European network. We broaden the origin base beyond China, develop new commercial lanes, and invest in customs proposition. This positions Spring as the go-to partner for platform-driven volume. In Europe, we're expanding our network with more hubs and linehauls, strengthening our footprint in Central and Eastern Europe, and supporting MyParcel's growth through smart routing and APIs.
Here, we also combine the local presence with proactive customs handling and targeted commercial expansion. The result: As a unified platform operating globally with local debt where it matters most. To capture the growth in the entire European e-commerce, we're accelerating our expansion. On the commercial side, we're broadening our customer base with stronger propositions and also reliable service. We are expanding our sales footprint and stepping up marketing activities, as we are investing in tooling and AI to make our offering even more competitive. At the same time, we are expanding our European network. We are increasing linehaul frequency, rolling out new hubs across Europe, and adding new capabilities. Through procurement efficiencies and better asset utilization, we're also driving costs down significantly. And finally, we're aligning our IT capabilities, building digital-first solutions and embedding AI tooling to support smarter operation. All of this fuels our flywheel of growth.
Better propositions lead to more customers, which means more volume, better efficiency, and the ability to reinvest in growth. The market for shipping platforms has changed dramatically. Traditionally, players were segmented. Some focus purely on consolidation and rates. Others offer control tower functions for large merchants, and others specialize in customer-facing experience. Today, these models are converging. Leading platforms now offer integrated propositions, combining consolidation, control, and experience into a single solution. This is exactly where MyParcel is positioning itself. Our ambition is to occupy the sweet spot where these models converge. We're building a hybrid approach that blends skill, depth of service, and customer experience, and importantly, our model is designed to be replicated across markets, giving us a foundation for international expansion. Strategically, our focus is clear. We aim to capture small, medium enterprises and scale-ups.
These merchants seek cost efficiency but also need premium functionality as they grow. By adapting to diverse European markets, we can deliver both. Our strengths set us apart: multi-carrier access, software-as-a-service functionality, and modular services that span the entire e-commerce value chain. And by leveraging Spring's international network and rates, we add even more competitive advantage. So MyParcel's edge lies in occupying the convergence point, offering skill, service, and customer experience in one powerful platform. Spring and MyParcel are two engines with one ecosystem. Together, they cover the full growth curve from a merchant's very first shipment to international scale. MyParcel unlocks small, medium enterprises and niche segments where traditional logistics often underperform, and it attracts merchants early in their life cycle with fast onboarding, plug-and-play integrations, and immediate access to both domestic and cross-border delivery.
When those businesses grow internationally, Spring takes over with skill, providing cost efficiency, broader delivery reach, and additional services such as customs. And Spring also accelerates MyParcel international expansion. By leveraging Spring's infrastructure, rates, and hubs, we can roll out MyParcel into new European markets quickly and efficiently. So while each model has a clear role and value proposition, together, they reinforce each other, creating one ecosystem: flexible at the start, scalable at the next stage, and reliable all the way through. Our platform strategy is delivering strong traction with clear economics. Revenues are growing at a healthy pace, with a year-on-year growth of 12%, and customer satisfaction is rising fast. Spring's NPS has more than doubled in two years, reaching 51 by 2025. We are accelerating merchant onboarding on MyParcel and extending our international footprint with new linehauls and new countries.
We help merchants scale internationally through Spring, creating strong upsell and cross-sell momentum. Our data-driven approach gives merchants greater visibility and control, from tracking and rates to carbon reporting, and by deepening integrations with marketplaces and shop systems, we strengthen stickiness and retention. All of this runs on an asset-light model: low CAPEX, scalable margins, and limited operational risk, and we are pushing this proven model harder into the market, supported by investment in sales and marketing to capture share. Our platform's models are designed for profitable international growth, firstly with accelerated international flows. Asset-light models allow us to expand routes quickly and capture new customer portfolios without heavy investment. Secondly, we strengthen our Dutch domestic leadership by keeping export flows and international volume in PostNL's network. We improve customer stickiness and protect our home markets. Thirdly, we build a smarter, leaner network.
Shared platforms, infrastructure, strong partner models, and automation through API drive efficiency and scalability. And finally, we fuel platform-based growth. With digital onboarding, plug-and-play tools, and scalable IT, we create network effects that reinforce growth and enable new propositions. In short, asset-light models give us flexibility, skill, and profitability. They position us to capture international e-commerce growth while strengthening PostNL's domestic base. That concludes the platform section. Pim, back to you.
Thank you, Tijs. Well, look, this is in itself an exciting segment, but as Tijs said, it is also very important with the ties towards the domestic network. So both facilitating the growth and network utilization in the domestic whilst growing these international businesses is a double-edged sword that both in terms of revenue and margin expansion gives us great opportunities. Now let's go to our third segment, which is obviously Mail.
There, the ambition is quite simple by the looks of this one sentence, but quite complicated in real life. We're trying to transform towards a future-proof postal service, and as you know, we're committed to secure that sustainable postal service. We've got a clear roadmap. We've scenario-planned all the way through. We know what we'll do and what action from the other side, so to speak, but it is a process that is not completely in our own hands, so we can plan for it. We can think about it. We can mitigate, but we are in a political process where kind of the current proposal already from the 30th of June of the minister is not economically viable and not feasible for us. That's why we've requested for net cost coverage. That was rejected.
Based on European legislation, a provider of public service is entitled to compensation if those obligations impose a disproportionate financial burden, which in our view is clearly the case. We've appealed against that rejection for net cost compensation, and that is expected to lead to a decision on appeal in early November. What we've done so is, a couple of weeks ago, we've sent a next letter to the minister on the response of the preliminary hearings on the net cost to basically ask for a relief on the USO obligations, and we have yet to wait his response to that. We've set a two-month deadline on the 5th of September, so that brings us to early November, where we would have the outcome of the appeal and ultimately the view of the minister on the request to be released from that universal service obligation.
In the meantime, we're continuing with our own action plan. It's obviously important that we're ready to make the transformation to D+2 in July 2026, but also already prepare for D+3 by 2028. That gives us potential for further cost saving and/or net compensation needed to get to a future-proof postal service. The request for relief has been done. And of course, if possible, we have a great preference to find a solution here in constructive dialogue. While at the same time, if we can't get there through dialogue, we will take mitigating measures ourselves, as we believe we can no longer absorb those net costs that do relate to the USO obligation.
This is a crucial slide not only for Mail business, but also for the entire equity story of PostNL, because this indicates how we believe we can get to that future-proof postal service and how we can take mitigating measures to safeguard Mail's performance and, as such, also offer a floor behind, underneath PostNL's equity story. So what you see here is basically two dotted lines in which we believe we can manage the Mail business going forward on a normalized EBIT basis, which is obviously not the same as a universal service result. Our plan is based on a D+2 per the 1st of July 2026, moving to D+3 by 2028 with a 90% quality standard and a partial step down in 2026 due to lead time and implementation costs. That makes the orange curve go slightly below there, gradually improving towards a positive result in 2028.
The downside we can reach through either changes in postal law that allows us to make those changes or by at some point taking net cost out in case no political progress or financial contribution is going to be given. Without those mitigating actions, the USO will remain to be loss-making until at least 2029. The downside case, so the - 20 line, is the scenario that we've taken into account in the outlook. The positive side of things would be if there is that financial compensation on net cost, where we truly believe those net costs are, and we believe we are entitled to that net cost compensation, and we're still able to execute the roadmap that I set out on the left-hand side, then you get a positive outcome within the mail business along the lines of the blue line.
As said, we've only taken, as part of the financial ambition 2028, the lower end of this range into account. And as said, even though you get to profitability at 2028 in the orange line, the USO will then still be loss-making. And that's why we will continue to push for changes that either alleviate the obligations that relate to the net cost or government should pay for it if, from a political point of view, we don't want to surrender these types of obligations. But left or right, we believe we can manage the Business Mail within this normalized EBIT bandwidth. How do we then take cost out? It's an image that we shared before that gives kind of the various stages of this game plan. It will be gradual with clear milestones. So this year, we already have migrated the non-USO, so the Business Mail to D+2 already.
That will deliver a saving of EUR 15 million in this year. That's already taking the lower cost per item. Cost saving on the off-peak mailbox collection during the day has contributed to that. So EUR 40 million-EUR 45 million of cost savings in 2025 based on not the USO changes, but the changes we already made. If we go to D+2, also including the letterbox packets product and migration of USO mid-2026, you will see that we'll eliminate an off-peak route. Off-peak routes are clearly the most expensive ones because there's a lot to bike. There's only limited mail to deliver. So the cost price per item is pretty high. So mail delivery will then be concentrated on three days at every address. There's still the option for priority products that need to be there next day, 24-hour products, but those will go through the e-commerce network.
We consistently optimize the network for further efficiency in mailbox collections. That gets us roughly EUR 35 million-EUR 40 million in savings a year. Then if you make the change to 2028, you go to a D+3 for both USO and business MIL. And then you basically eliminate one delivery day to create economies of scale. So the Saturday there is gone, which means that you can concentrate the sorting process during the day, get rid of night work, which is also helpful from an employee point of view. You'll then continue further with your centralization of sorting and preparation processes and to continuously optimize that network going forward. That will lead to cost savings of EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million. And then you will get to the point, based on the assumptions that I shared on the previous slide, that at least your Business Mail is not loss-making anymore.
So those are the steps that we need to go through. There are various ways to get there, preferably through dialogue. But if not, we're not going to wait and see. The impact of net costs is too big on the company, and we'll then take steps to mitigate those net costs ourselves. So this is what we're set out to do: maintain the relevance of mail services. There are still a lot of people that want to receive mail. It's for some even the connection to others. We really want to continue doing that, but in an economically viable way. So it requires stability, simplicity, and predictability, gradual and social migration of delivery within two to three days, which means that we can do that with natural attrition in the workforce.
That will get to more attractive working packages for our people and also taking out working at night shifts. At this point in time, it's fair to say that there is no clear perspective coming from the minister as to how to do this. The debate that was planned for in Parliament was taken out on the back of the postal dialogue on the 3rd of September. We truly believe the ball is in his court to now determine how he wants to make the change in a structural and economically viable way. As said, we're here for dialogue, but we're not able to do this and absorb the USO cost. It's not viable. It's irresponsible. And as such, we'll make the changes if we believe we need to make them.
The scenarios, including mitigating measures, are there to limit the downside risk, which results in an EBIT range of EUR -20 million to EUR +15 million towards positive results on EBIT level, not on USO in all scenarios. And we've taken the EUR -20 million as the baseline for the financial ambition that you've seen also before. On that note, I think it's due time now that we step into that financial ambition and look at more in detail how do we get from where we are today to the more than EUR 175 million of normalized EBIT in 2028. And Linde will gladly take you through those ingredients. Please welcome.
Yes. Well, the last part of today's presentation, and of course, as CFO, in my view, the best part of the presentation. No, just kidding. The financial ambition.
We have heard today our different stories on our strategy for the different platforms, for e-commerce platforms and for mail. For these three segments, that combined brings us to our financial ambition. Let me talk through those financial ambitions on total, but also per segment. Before doing that, good to mention, like highlighted in the beginning of the presentation, as of 2026, we are going to split the e-commerce, the current parcel segments into e-commerce and platforms. For your convenience, in the appendix of the capital markets slide deck, you will find a good reconciliation on revenue and normalized EBIT from old to the new structure. That could help you in your modeling. Lastly, in this chapter, we want to highlight some simplifications in dividend policy and in our reporting cycle. I will come back to that in a bit.
Let me start with our overall PostNL ambition. Clearly, we have four domains where we want to express our ambition for 2028. To start with revenue. For revenue, we have, following our strategy as we have outlined today, we have our ambition to get to over EUR 4 billion by 2028. That brings us to a CAGR of 5% since 2024. This is driven by the e-commerce volume growth, by our accelerating growth in the platform business, the ongoing decline in mail, as Pim just outlined, and obviously overall price increases. When moving to normalized EBIT for 2028, we aim for a significant step up towards EUR 175 million. Of course, that is driven by the revenue, as just explained, but I will show you later on the exact building blocks how we get there.
And then on the cash flow side, we aim for a free cash flow over EUR 75 million by 2028, whereby in the first year, so 2026, we expect it to still be negative and then starting to increase towards EUR 75 million in 2028. This obviously follows our increase in normalized EBIT, but also includes our continued CAPEX investments in IT, in sustainability, and our network at a level of approximately EUR 150 million per year as of 2026. And lastly, going forward, we want to put more focus on our return on invested capital. Our ambition is to increase from a current ROIC of 3.4% for 2024 towards a ROIC of over 12%. Also here, this is a significant step up, and I will come back to that later as well. Finally, good to mention that for the current year, for 2025, our outlook remains unchanged.
Let me go through the segments one by one based on which this total ambition is built up. Starting with e-commerce. For e-commerce markets, as mentioned, it's about from volume to value strategy. We assume the market growth to be 5% on an annual basis with a limited market share loss, as Pim also mentioned following our yield measures. Looking at revenue and starting with that ambition over there, we aim for a mid-single digit growth showing our impact of our segmented customer approach as just outlined and, of course, general price increases here as well. Moving on to our normalized EBIT margin.
There we expect the normalized EBIT margin to grow from 2.5% in 2024 towards 6.5% in 2028, driven by the margin engine I've explained earlier on and how the exact building blocks from the 2.5% towards the 6.5% are built up. I will come to in the next slide. As you can see on the left chart, the margins increased gradually over time with the yield measures gradually kicking in over time. Finally, looking at the ROIC with this performance improvement for e-commerce, this should result in a gradual increase towards double-digit ROIC for this segment. Of course, it's interesting to have a look how the step up from 2.5% in 2024 to 6.5% is built up.
Here on the slide, you see the bridge, how we get there, starting at the top with our positive contribution of our volume growth, both in domestic and international volume. And then clearly, secondly, a very important contributor to the 6.5%, our yield measures. Like I explained earlier on with our toolbox and the margin engine elements, these are significant and are only partially offset by a negative mix effect being the mix between international and the domestic volumes. As said, this is a main driver for our step up. Then the third building block are our operational costs. I referred to earlier on in the presentation on our cost savings initiatives and using our network optimally. Cost saving efforts in our network really contribute here. But also, we still have investments in sustainability, reduced physical labor, and digital capabilities, as of course, that will be offset that cost savings.
Finally, we have, of course, a very important continued organic cost increase building block. We anticipate continuing inflationary pressure at the same level as 2024. This puts obviously significant pressure on our margin development. Moving to our platform segment, where we aim to capture international growth through our asset light model. Zooming here on our ambition for this segment, we start here with revenue as well. Our ambition on revenue growth for platforms is to become double-digit revenue growth via our focus on accelerating intra-European growth as well as the growth of our Asian platforms and MyParcel. Moving on to the normalized EBIT margin. Here, our ambition is to restore from the current 2.6% in 2024 towards approximately 3% in 2028.
As you can see on the chart on the left, there are investments in our network still needed from the sales and marketing capabilities, like just explained by Tijs. They will put pressure on the margin in 2025 and 2026, after which it will move up again. Given the low level, given the inherent nature of this business model of low level of invested capital, this is the segment with the highest ROIC by 2028, then moving on to the Mail segment. Pim just extensively elaborated on our bandwidth on normalized EBIT for the downside and the upside. Good to reiterate that our overall ambition, as well as the ambition here for the Mail segment, is based on the downside scenario. Looking at our ambition for revenue, we expect a low single-digit revenue decline.
This is based on a continued volume decline of approximately 7% in the years up to 2027 and a decline of 10% in 2028 coming from the move to D +3 . Combined with general price increases, the revenue is then expected to result in this low single-digit decline. Then moving on to the normalized EBIT margin. Margin is to be expected to be negative in 2025- 2027, also as you can see on the chart on the left. The execution of our roadmap will overall result in a return towards a margin of approximately close to zero, just above break-even as of 2028. With all of this performance for the mail segment, this brings us to a ROIC of around 0% for the mail segment. This is clearly below the WACC, and that is also supporting the story of Pim we just heard.
Compensation for the net cost for the USO is necessary to get a return that covers at least the cost of capital, which is currently for the Mail segment, 6.5%. If we summarize these different ambitions per segment from a normalized EBIT perspective, you clearly see that the biggest step comes from e-commerce, and maybe good to add a few words on PostNL O ther. To phrase that simple, that are the head office costs. There we expect it to remain stable towards 2028 around a level of EUR -15 million to EUR -20 million. Let's have a look at our CAPEX and our strategic investments to drive this transformation. As said, we continue to invest in our network, in our IT, our digital capabilities, and of course, sustainability.
Here on the chart, in the middle, you see the vast majority is invested from a CapEx point of view on IT, but also on other elements as mentioned on the slide. Our CapEx, as said, is expected to increase towards EUR 150 million per year as of 2026. Good to note that next to CapEx, we also have lease additions. That's what we use for our fleet and our buildings. So that is on top of the CapEx you see here on the slide. Let's have a look at a translation of our normalized EBIT into the free cash flow for 2028. Starting at the top with our ambition, normalized EBIT of EUR 175 million. I won't go through them one by one, but let me highlight a few. To start with our depreciation and amortization.
Given our investments, continued investments, we expect the depreciation and amortization to increase with approximately EUR 10 million per year. Good to note that this excludes the one-off impairment, which we recognized in the second quarter of this year. Then you see, of course, the CapEx and lease. I just referred to the CapEx of the investments, which I showed on the earlier slide. And then we only see a limited additional investment in working capital coming from our step up in revenue growth. And lastly, good to comment on the last line item, interest paid and income tax. Our tax cash out is positively impacted, so less cash out in 2028 for around EUR 15 million coming from liquidation losses. And we projected to have these liquidation losses up until 2029, so even beyond the horizon of this ambition. Let's have a look at the ROIC.
As said in the beginning, we want to put more focus on our return on invested capital. And why? To drive efficient capital allocation and to ensure long-term value creation for our shareholders, we want to focus more on ROIC going forward. We target a significant improvement in our ROIC coming from 3.4% in 2024 towards over 12% in 2028. The 3.4% in 2024 is based on an invested capital of approximately EUR 800 million. Where does it come from? Obviously, the step up comes from our ambition on normalized EBIT combined with our strategic capital allocation. Driven the step up is obviously, as explained earlier on, knowing that for the mail segment, we have a 0% ROIC, the step up is driven by e-commerce and platforms. Then zooming in on our capital allocation with our aim to holding on to be properly financed. We have a clear funnel.
We start with investing first and foremost, always in our own organic growth, being investments in our network, but also our out-of-home strategy, as explained earlier on, and very important, our IT capabilities. After that, we explore inorganic growth opportunities, all in line with our strategic criteria. We focus here on partnerships in our growth domains rather than large acquisition, given to limit the size of the required capital. And the remaining cash flow, looking at three and four, should be sufficient to pay out our dividends based on our performance and to optimize our financing structure in the end. Talking about that financing structure, let's have a look at that. Our financing structure is built to provide flexibility on our maturities, on our instruments, and on the fixed and floating interest rates. On the left side, you see our composition of our current debt profile.
It consists of various lease liabilities, two bonds, one maturing in 2026 and one maturing in 2031, both with a face value of EUR 300 million, and you also see the most recent Schuldschein loan of EUR 100 million. Secondly, you see our revolving credit facility is fully undrawn of EUR 200 million at the bottom. It is important to understand the pillars of our financial framework. We aim for a leverage below 2.0 with positive consolidated equity and applying strict cash management. We assume that we can maintain an investment-grade credit rating. Lastly, good to mention that obviously we are continuously monitoring capital markets to assure optimal financing structure. That brings me to the simplifications which we intend to apply as of 2026. Let me start with our dividend policy. Our intention is to change the methodology from other comprehensive income towards normalized profit.
Why do we do that? Because our current pension plan, we no longer have significant pension implications on our other comprehensive income. Net profit is more in line with peers and a more simple metric to follow. In line with peers, we also decided to stop interim dividends going forward and apply a different dividend once per year, as said in line with our peers. This adjusted dividend policy will be tabled at the next AGM in April 2026 as a non-voting item with the intention to apply it as of 2026. The second change we want to mention, want to announce is our change on the reporting cycle. As of 2026, we are going to run a more lean reporting cycle with a Q1 and Q3 trading update only and for the half year and full year, a full reporting like you are used to today.
And why do we do that? The vast majority of our performance is achieved in the fourth quarter, and that explains for us a good reason to simplify and focus also internally on the right quarters and the right performance in the right time of the year. With that, I've come to the end of this financial chapter. Let me now hand back to Pim for some closing remarks, I would say.
Thank you. Yeah, so one slide of closing remarks before we take a break and then get back to Q&A. I think for us, and thanks, Linde, for explaining the financials here, it's really a crucial step and a new chapter in PostNL's journey, this new Breakthrough 2028 strategy. And of course, it will be all about execution.
But for us, it's crucial to see that change of momentum, to see the drive and the energy towards the strategic goals that we have set already. So really convinced that we can shape the future of PostNL in the direction that we just shared with you with all the people that are around us. So a lot to do clearly, but I think the logic of what we try to do, the coherence of the strategy along the business segments, hopefully has been clear to all of you. What we then strive to do is, of course, to deliver sustainable returns for our shareholders and value for our customers, employees, and society at large. We are a leading player, and we expect to remain a leading player that drives the change in this e-commerce space.
This new strategy for us is a strategic turning point, and the new program, Breakthrough 2028, will give and drive the financial ambition that drives the significant improvements in our financial KPIs, as just explained by Linde. It's a market where there's GDP revenue plus revenue growth driven by e-commerce and commercial initiatives. We will get to the EUR 175 million by 2028. That step up predominantly comes from the e-commerce segment, as you've seen. Platforms will drive growth and drive return on invested capital, and it's exciting from also a valuation point of view. We have a clear roadmap on what to do with mail whilst keeping a floor under the results of mail so that the equity story can be leveraged on the e-commerce and platforms growth segments.
As we've done before and will continue to do so, is remain very disciplined in our investment approach, driving incremental returns on invested capital whilst also putting effort on the innovation areas that we discussed in the beginning of the presentation. So all in all, we're convinced that we will make the changes required to get to the breakthrough ambitions driven by the North Star that we've set. We already build on the momentum on those strategic changes. So for now, thank you. Let's have a short break, and after the break, we've got all the time we need to follow up with Q&A. So thanks so far.
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Welcome back for the last part of today's Capital Markets Day. For the next around 45 minutes, Pim and Linde will be available to answer your questions. We will start with questions from the people with us in Nieuwegein. And for analysts and investors that are with us online, please use the chat functionality in the webcast to ask your questions. We are happy to take them here as well. So, who is ready for the first question? Ooh, one to choose. I take Michiel. Please go ahead.
Right. Hey, Michiel from KBC Securities. And thanks for taking my questions. And thanks for the nice presentation today. I will try to limit myself to two and maybe a follow-up here and there. But the first question is on what I now should call the e-commerce.
You discussed, of course, a lot of the yield measures that you try to do and the discussions that you have with your customers to kind of smooth this parcel volume pattern from Next Day to Best Day, as I could say. You already kind of announced this at the beginning of this year that you were planning to do this, and you are already working on this. Can you maybe tell us how this is going and what the perception has been with some of your big customers, maybe also with different styles of customers and how they are looking at this? And then maybe following up on this also, we've seen the margin outlook and the phasing of the margin outlook for the e-commerce segment. It kind of grows steadily this year and next year, but then there is a big catch-up in 2027.
Can you maybe explain what drives this catch-up? That would be a small follow-up, and then just on the USO, we, of course, have seen that you have requested to withdraw from the USO after your request for remuneration was denied. Can you maybe clarify how easy you can withdraw from this USO obligation or what the conditions are there or what they need to revisit? Or that would be my questions, please.
Of course. Thank you. Shall I take the first one and the second, yes. Sure. Yeah. First of all, your question on the e-commerce and our, let's say, experiences so far with the yield measures. Yes, you're correct. We have started with that already earlier in the year, and the first experiences are positive. So far, we do not see large, let's say, client attrition coming from these negotiations.
Overall, this is also seen as a value driver, as we try to explain today, for the whole e-commerce system, so also for the customers. With that story, so that it's a win-win for the whole ecosystem, that is well received and something which we get back. Yeah, of course, that brings us a bit, or brings me a bit to your second question on the phasing for what you refer to the EBIT margin development for the e-commerce segment. Of course, this is something with the yield measures which we are taking, which is not something that happens from one day to the other. Of course, you have contracts which have different durations. That's not something which tomorrow is solved. What you see in the gradual path towards the 6.5% is that step by step that happens in 2025 and 2026.
And then you have more, well, all these investments in this story from Next Day to Best Day to have all the checkouts like we discussed and the pilots, etc. And then you will get that kick in to make that happen. So it requires some investments and therefore time to make that step up. And then the last question.
Another question maybe on the USO to simplify it. How does that work? Asking relief from USO and how is the process then going? Look, the USO obligation is assigned to us in postal law. So it's not a specific contract. It's just PostNL will do this. And that's why we now ask for relief from that obligation. We've set a two-month deadline for the minister to consider this. And he either can say yes or no. If he says yes, then there's a different landscape going forward.
You should then start a tender process to see who is willing to do this universal service as it is defined in the marketplace. In the meantime, PostNL will be required to continue doing the service. But through a tender process, you can obviously create a different setup of the universal service that could lead to a structural and good solution going forward. So it basically changes the approach from discussions in Parliament to a discussion on tender specs. And that could help maybe changing the dynamics towards a USO that is financially, economically viable. But in the meantime, we will have to do this under the conditions that are set. To understand our view on game plan, I would say look at the entire process from already two, three years back and what we've done and taken all the steps in the sequence that we've taken them.
This one was clearly a big step. We've been doing the universal service for over 200 years. We truly believe that what is currently on the table is just not possible, not feasible for us to continue. That's why we've now taken that step to say, relieve us of that obligation. That's why we say the ball is really in the court of the minister now to say yes or no to this or to come up with a structural solution that makes the USO viable. And if not, then we'll take mitigating actions ourselves.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, then Michiel, you choose. What do you want, left or right? Up to you.
Okay, thanks. This is Frank Claassen of Degroof Petercam. We've got some financial questions. I will ask them one by one. First of all, on your leverage, you have targets to be below two, but with the negative Free Cash Flow for this and also next year, if I do some back-of-the-envelope, you may be higher maybe than two. And how are you then looking at your dividends? Will you pay your dividend anyway if you are above two? Or how are your, yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
You want to do it one one? Yes. Well, to answer to that, yes. So your back-of-the-envelope calculation is correct in that sense. But our dividend policy is about our aim to be properly financed. So it's not the case that if it's a bit higher than 2.0, that we won't pay any dividends. It is about that we want to be properly financed and taking into consideration our business performance. Also, like we have just heard, all the developments in the mail segment. We look at it as a whole picture and not just in isolation for that. We still have the intention to pay dividend for 2025.
Okay. On mail, you have this plan of cost savings. My question is, do you also need to have restructuring costs to get to those savings?
No, we have restructuring costs. Of course, there are investments that make the changes that we need to make, and we are preparing for those. That's in terms of preparation costs, some switching costs. But we believe by doing this gradually and preparing now for D +2 for July 2026 and over time to D+3 by 2028, we can use natural attrition and charge to change the working packages of our people in order to do so without big restructuring cash outs. And then the costs related to the change are really the preparation, the switching, the time it will take you to get to the productivity levels in the new network. And those are, of course, taken into account in the margin profiles of the segments that Linde showed to you.
Okay. And final question on the CapEx, the step up. I noticed that it was really mainly related to IT. IT is the biggest bulk. But what is exactly IT? What are you going to invest in? Is this AI tools or what should we think of?
Yeah, so the vast majority is, and also that came back in our story, our DevOps. So basically all the different developments of certain digital tools, that is what we invest in our IT capabilities. So also towards that whole journey of our AI-first, that are elements where you can think of our IT investments.
I think maybe in addition, if I may, if you look at those 10 strategic priorities, then those do require a fair amount of DevOps requirements. If we want to be more differentiated, if you want to create tiered propositions, you need to be able to change your pricing strategies on customer segment levels. That requires change. Also, the new service offerings and propositions require change to our touchpoints, to our app, to our digital channels. Those elements we encompass all in that 10 strategic priorities program that leads to DevOps, that leads to initiatives, features that will then help us to make the change on those commercial engines and network efficiencies that were discussed.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Mark?
Sorry. Thank you. Marc Zwartsenburg , ING. Maybe to come back on the USO thing that Michiel also asked about. The government has to then come up with a tender. In the meantime, you have to deliver. But what if nobody shows up that can deliver the USO, which is quite logical? Can the tender then be ongoing, and you still have to get going on the mail side? And linked to that, you mentioned, yeah, but in the meantime, we can already maybe drive the USO with a different setup.
But it doesn't mean that if nothing happens. I think you already alluded to it in your press release, that you can already make the changes as you proposed earlier this year. Is that indeed how we should look at it, at the graph that you show with a - 20 as a floor? Is that based on the government proposal or your own roadmap? Yeah, can you help me a bit with that?
Yeah, of course. There's a few questions in this question, I think. So let's take it. Complex also. True. Well, it's a more than relevant topic. So look, the tender approach. It's not been done before. So just to be clear, this is a process where we will need to figure out how it works. It's an obligation set in postal law.
We ask to be relieved from that obligation, and now it's up to the minister to determine. If there's nobody willing to do it, it needs to be retendered, and indeed, if those conditions are not satisfying to the market players, you'll need to set up a different tender, but then that could also drive the discussion in Parliament, but what do we actually need from a universal service, and how could that lead to a change in concept from what we are currently looking at? At some point, we truly believe that we cannot be held towards these obligations if we structurally move towards those steps. We have started this dialogue already years ago. The draft postal laws from 2020, the current postal laws from 2029. We've done proposals. All the research has been done. ACM says this is unsustainable. Market players understand this needs to change.
Consumers and customers alike think there's a logic to it. At some point, if there's no change, we will then make the change ourselves with the expectations that we're allowed to make those changes, even though the law has not been changed. That depends on all the steps we've taken up to that point. Hopefully we won't get to that and get to a solution that works through dialogue. We're not going to do this against these obligations because the impact is just too big, which means that if we have to, we'll make decisions that reduce the net costs ourselves. We can get to the lower end of the mill bandwidth through various reasons.
So what we've done as a crucial step also before this Capital Markets Day is if we really want to get a post-mail equity story, of course we need to improve our e-commerce proposition and expand margins there. We need to have attractive growth opportunities, which we have in the platform space. But we also need to secure a safe floor under the mail business. Otherwise, if that continues to go down, the other side can go up and you still have no story, right? So we looked at it. How can we get there? Various ways. Either through postal law changes that work for us or by other scenarios. And that's all in all why we say you can take that lower end as robust enough for your outlook because we believe we can get there through various potential scenarios. And also s till means.
By the way, sorry.
That on that note, the USO will still be negative. This is clearly not good enough. So we'll certainly strive for a better outcome than that orange line because we truly believe we should not be able to be forced to do this against negative net costs. But the baseline is the -20 line. Yeah, and also to make it very clear, then that is the scenarios without any subsidy or. Yeah, the lower end is without. If you want to go to the blue line, kind of the upside, there we have assumed the net cost compensation for the net costs that are actually there. So we're not asking more, but just asking the net costs that are there to be compensated. Then you are at the blue line.
Okay, that's also good to know, yeah. So the delta between those lines is then roughly the net cost. Yeah, the net cost is 35. Clear. And then maybe also linked to that, the ROIC story. On the mail, you basically say, yeah, the EBIT is zero. But there's a bit more to the ROIC than just an EBIT. So should we, because I also saw, I think the WACC of 6.5% you're using for the mail business, is that then the ROIC should be north of that if we assume the lines that you showed for the mail business. Is that still the case? Or will the ROIC be less than the 6.5% and should you give it back to the government anyway?
Yeah, I said we cannot really give it back, but let's say that's why we said, let's say if we get to a zero margin and a return on invested capital of zero, then at least we've secured a floor. But then still it's economically, of course, non-viable. You're not making up your cost of capital. That's why we say we need to strive for more because you cannot really sustain this business if you're not able to at least cover your cost of capital. The 6.5 is what external parties have set as being the WACC of the mail side of things. So if we end up with the orange line, we will economically be value destructive, although there is a floor to it.
And then at post-annual level, you can look at the other elements to say it's value creating because there we will exceed the cost of capital. If we were to use the blue line, including net cost compensation, then you will get to the level where your return on invested capital covers your WACC. And that should also be the ambition level. But for now, let's look at a floor being the orange line.
Yeah, that's very helpful. Thank you. Maybe because you only discussed mail, can I ask one other question?
Ask one, and then we go back to my screen, and then we go back to you again.
Yeah, I want to go back to the e-commerce business. You mentioned from Next Day to Best Day and the different checkout options that you can pick and choose a day and have maybe a discount or something else. Is that something that's easily implementable, and does it really help in your yield discussion with your client? Because, yeah, they have the benefit maybe to get more volumes out. You have the benefit of more equally spread. But yeah, I can imagine it's a discussion that maybe the benefit for you is a bit higher than for them. So does it in the end really lead to a higher yield? Is it something you do already have showcases that you did this with the client? Because I haven't seen it yet in checking stuff out, so maybe it's new.
Well, we wouldn't do this if this wouldn't work, of course. But maybe to explain a bit to you how it creates value for both parties. So it's not just for PostNL. So there it is helping us in our yield measures.
But in those conversations, and that is what we try to explain in our ecosystem, by making it more from Next Day to Best Day , it helps in our equal flow. But that's not just the equal flow on our side, on PostNL side, but that's also for our customer. And knowing that the consumer also is willing, as we have seen on the slides, is really accepting or seems to be open for best day delivery, that is an opportunity because that not just helps us, but also the customers. So really, it's about telling that story and taking them along that, I would say, joint responsibility that we have the joint responsibility to, well, change that ecosystem. And that is something, yeah, that will take time.
But yeah, you see that customers are open to that as long as the combined story is clear and also the win-win in both situations is helpful. And yes, it helps because if you bring the volume to a better day, well, maybe not on the price, you may have a, well, let's say, discount on your price, but it also lowers your costs. So the combination of price and the cost, what it takes to make it happen, brings you to the yield measures, which helps in the margin development. So yeah, if that gives a bit of color on your question. Thank you very much. Okay. And I think I have here a question of Henk from online. And that is a follow-up question on that one. And I read it for him.
One of the key elements of the yield improvement ambition is the Next Day to Best Day initiative. A few questions on that. You are claiming your research shows that consumers are more prepared to wait for the delivery of their ordered goods than before. Have you also looked into what is driving that?
Yes, of course, because otherwise, you don't know what type of solution you need, so it's all about consumer control, so they want to receive the parcel when it's convenient for them through the channel that is most convenient for them, and that is all about them having control from selection of products to checkout to delivery options, and we clearly can follow that and can test that also in our app, so we know it's all about first time right, not only for us, but also for them.
Because let's say if we all start spending money on weekends for it to be delivered while on Tuesday, the days are with the highest traffic jams and most people being in the office, it doesn't seem that logical. And that's also why consumers truly believe that it is also beneficial for them to be able to make those choices on a moment in time that fits them best. And that's what will drive the change.
And do you think that the marketplace or the webshop where consumers are ordering does make a difference in this preference?
I think there it's important. And the arguments that we believe we have towards them is that you can clearly see if you offer consumers better checkout options, your Net Promoter Score will increase. You'll get to the happier customer side of things, which are lifetime value five times higher than others.
That's one. Clearly, they know, as we know, that not all of their customers are equally contributing to their margin profile. Why not making a segmentation there as well? Your consumer that spends five times a week where you make your most money from, it could be very logical to give him or her as preferred option next day. One that comes back every other month, you could say your standard will be best day being Wednesday, Tuesday. You can still change it, but then you get a different proposition with a different price point. Those elements we've seen in research, we have started the pilots that Linde talked about to make them also work in real life. Why is this quite easy to explain and not that easy in real life? Because you need to amend checkout.
You need to change the data flows. You need to have the ability to redirect. That's also why some of the margin step-up elements take some time to mature, and that again is the answer to the 2027 step-up question.
Yeah, and I do think that that also answers the last part of Henk's question. He asked in your presentation, you also said that your clients may want something in return, and could this take a bite out of your margins or the expected savings more than compensating this? And I think you have just.
Of course, as we said, we want to create a different value distribution in the entire chain, so there we can take cost out in the chain. Everyone benefits, but it could also be a different split of price increases versus efficiency gains, so there will be definitely a value also for our clients. Of course, how we split the value, that will be part of what we will do when we execute these plans. We think we've taken realistic assumptions for the contribution of this yield management into the plans that we shared.
Okay. I think one last question on this topic from Henk on the concentration of the top three clients in parcels in the Netherlands, currently at 34%. You expect this to increase to maybe mid-40s. At least it will go up. How big is this a threat for parcels in your opinion?
It's not necessarily a threat if you are able to differentiate propositions also with those bigger clients. And also those bigger clients need to recognize that they play a role in an ecosystem where we have the capacity. And they need to understand that they need to contribute to better working environments, investments i innovation, and what have you. So they will need to understand that they need to contribute to higher yields as well. So let's do that smart and let's do that together, which creates a more efficient e-commerce chain. That's probably the most logical and rational way to look at this. So that's what we're also pursuing with them.
Okay. Henk, I hope this is sufficient for you at this moment in time. Let's go to Stefano for the next question here.
Yes, hello. Stefano Toffano, ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF . Thank you very much for the presentation. So first question, I hope this doesn't sound too critical. But if we look at where e-commerce and platforms is guided or targeted, at least Normalized EBIT in 2028, and we compare that with, let's say, the past decade, excluding the two big COVID years, one might think this is, well, a very, very big transformation over the next few years. One might also think perhaps parcels have been mismanaged a little bit in the past. So I guess the question is, why of some of these measures haven't we seen that before?
Well, I think that is not that difficult to explain. I think if you look at the margin profile that we want to get back to, it's a margin profile that we've had in the past before. What has changed is some of the elements in market circumstances that drive the change and also tech developments make some of the changes now easier than before.
So let's look at the elements that have deteriorated margin profile that has been first and foremost significantly higher inflationary pressures than in the past decade as of 2022, at a point in time where price points for that year were already fixed. And as we shared with you, the delta between organic cost up and prices out has been cumulatively more than EUR 150 million negative impact. So for an industry to absorb this and to translate that to a different commercial strategy takes time, specifically on the back of a black swan event like Ukraine war was with the impact that it had. So let's not forget those external market circumstances when you make that comparison. Well, is there a point that we could have been better? Yes, maybe there is. And that's why we now say we step up the pace on performance management.
We step up the pace on how to differentiate the sales approach much more than before, which was maybe a few years ago not necessarily that important because the network was there. The unit economics were still at that pace that every other item led to more profitability given the capacity being there. Next to that now, next to the inflationary pressure, you've seen that client concentration accelerate because of the introduction of the big Asian platforms. The platformization has led to a shift from SMEs to platforms too, and it is time now to adjust your commercial approaches to those changes.
But if you've been successful in a next Olympic era by training methods that get you the gold, it will take a bit of time for you to say, "Okay, we really need to change this around to a different training style, a different approach to use and to work against the competition that will be there next time around." That just takes time. You could say too long. We will say we're stepping up the pace now that momentum is there, the capabilities are there now, and the conviction of the team and also of the clients is there to make those changes now. So that would be my answer on a very fair question. So don't worry about it.
Many thanks. Maybe another question on the value propositions per customer segment. So I certainly understand quite a few of these, let's say, propositions that you have. But maybe, for example, the one on add-ons on digital services, what gives you the confidence that these do not get commoditized away in a few years' time?
To give you an example, there are other countries where if you go on a marketplace and a checkout, then they provide 15 different solutions. If you look at the prices that consumers pay for these solutions over the past two, three years, they have dramatically dropped at the cost to the provider and to the benefit of the consumer. So my question here is, do you maybe assess also how sustainable these are over the next few years as competition increases? Yeah, of course, we looked at those. I don't think these examples are because we expect consumers to pay more.
But we truly can prove that by adjusting customer journeys, by using the data that we have in data flows, we can increase the net promoter scores. We can increase the conversion of our clients' growth expectations. And that has a value. And that could be triggers that make us able to make the changes that we're just talking about. The biggest change will not become of the monetary element of those elements in and by itself. It will be by changing the propositions and leveraging what we see happening in the chain to make our customers more successful. That leads to a different value proposition that could distinguish us from others in this chain that might be less able to do so. So that's the way I would look at it. It's not individually the most important driver behind the step-up in margin profile.
If I can squeeze one last in regarding your dividends, why hold? I mean, the way you phrase your dividend policy is very flexible. So I think that's a very smart move. But given all the process that PostNL is going through over the next few years, why hold on to the intention to pay out dividends anyways?
Well, yeah, maybe, of course, well, thanks for considering that smart, but I think that is really how we look at it. So we really take all these elements, our current performance, the developments in the mail segment, but also the change, and net towards net profit. Yes, we still have the intention to continue to do that, and obviously, every year we assess that whether it is feasible, but this is really how it works. We will take a careful balance between the different elements in that to decide what to do or not. And that's why we keep on repeating that we have the intention to pay dividends also going forward.
Thank you.
Let's go to Wijnand, please.
Wijnand Heineken, Independent Minds. When you discussed the transformation of the normalized EBIT into free cash flow, you mentioned that there would be a positive impact from liquidation losses on the tax item. So I was wondering whether you could give a bit more color on that, about the timing and how sizable that will be for the EUR 75 million or more than EUR 75 million you set within your ambition for 2028, because I got the impression that the main benefits would be back-end loaded into the timeframe of your new ambition. And then maybe one just for me preventing misunderstanding things about mail outlook.
The base scenario is clear. You came up with the orange line - 20, but also about zero for 2028. So I was wondering for the normalized EBIT in 2028 over EUR 175 million, what is there anticipated for mail? Is that the zero or the - 20? Thanks.
Yeah, let me start with your last question on the mail. What you could see in the line, the red line and looking at 2028, you see that being above zero. So it's not zero, but it's slightly above zero. So that's a response to that. And for the liquidation losses, yeah, I don't go into detail in that sense, but as mentioned, we have EUR 15 million impact by 2028 for that cash flow. And we also expect it to be applicable for 2029. So yeah.
For 2028, 2029.
Yeah. Yeah.
Those are the bigger years and depending on where they originate from and they still originate from, let's say, the way we exited Germany and Italy operations. And also, I think in the annual accounts, you can find something about the absolute size of those liquidation losses. And otherwise, we can follow up on that offline as well.
Okay. Then we go to Martin next to Wijnand.
Thank you. Martin Baker, the RDA. Firstly, a couple of questions centered around platform. You've been pretty clear about your revenue growth going forward for e-commerce and for mail. E-commerce mid-single digit, so let's say five. Decline in mail of -2 . More directional for platform of a double digit. But then if I still end up with 5% overall growth, that indicates that platform is presumed to grow by 15%. Even if I take the 15%, I'm hardly reaching the EUR 4 billion. Is that more or less correct?
The calculation you are doing obviously also depends on the weight of the different segments. It's not exactly like that, I would say.
It's definitely the case that, let's say, the pace of growth in platforms will significantly outpace the growth in the e-commerce space. That's by different levers. One we discussed being cross-border growth faster than domestic. That's one. We're opening up new linehauls, new trade lanes in Europe. That's what Tijs Reumerman explained from the IMEC. There's big growth opportunities in Europe that leads to that higher growth, also driven by the investments we'll make in those new linehauls, in marketing and sales approaches.
Then we've got our expansion plan from Asia, where we're currently relying to a large extent from deal flows from China to Europe. We're opening up different countries as well in this model from different Asian countries to Europe. And those elements together accelerate the growth to beyond the 10%. So it's going to be double-digit growth on platforms. Likewise, on the MyParcel side, which is for now predominantly a Dutch operation, we expect to expand that to other European countries on the back of where Spring is already active and already have access to certain types of customers that fit well within the MyParcel proposition that will further accelerate growth.
You already answered half of my second question because what do you reckon is your added value in your Spring business? Because everybody is just focusing on cross-border. They see it as a cross-border.
The ability of the IT network and the proximity towards the customers, so being present in 15 different countries and having the ability to create network solutions through supply chains by adding components of others in a smooth journey and giving the insights from the entire data flow to it. That's been the success of Spring also over the past years. Let's not forget that Spring's growth rate on revenue has been already above 10% over the last periods in time, predominantly also in Europe. Their competitive edge is really in the proximity towards the customer, the ease of use, and the insights that we have on the back of those 230 operators that we use to create the best possible supply chain solution for the type of clients that Spring serves.
That is what drives, has driven the growth in the past and expected to drive future growth as well, and then talking about MyParcel because you mentioned you're the sweet spot of the business. There's another name mentioned there, Sendcloud, also in the sweet spot, but they are independent. They can even offer services from competitors like DHL or Geopost or whatever. What's your advantage over Sendcloud from this perspective? No, it's pretty much the same, so they are multi-carrier. They are offering solutions of other carriers. They just deliver the solution that is required by the SMEs that they serve, and they are independent, and they just help consumers or, I would say, SME customers to go cross-border, to go multi-carrier, to make a choice depending on the consignment that needs to be sent. Is it actually cargo? Is it something from the Netherlands to Germany?
Who has the best proposition there? What are the API connections that I need to follow that throughout the journey? That's what they do. And they definitely do not push orange PostNL. They find the solution that works for the customer demand that they get. So in that sense, they're comparable to Sendcloud. I would say also comparable in terms of size, probably more profitable than Sendcloud. Not probably.
And then lastly, regarding your APLs, you want to triple the number. Firstly, there was already a big fight about real estate places where you can install those APLs. So why do you think you can triple that amount? And secondly, can you also give a breakdown how many you will install in the Netherlands and how many you will install in Belgium?
Well, I don't have the last part. I don't have the breakdown yet. So of course, we're more mature in the Netherlands right now, and we will go into Belgium. I don't know by heart how much of the 3,600 will be in Belgium. The question is more about, okay, how much and how quick can you deploy those parcel lockers then? There, I think we have the benefit through our retail locations and through the fact that we are the ones that allocate postal codes that we know in communities where to go if we want to find place. Of course, there's a whole range of retailers that you can go to and make arrangements for under which conditions they are willing to give you the square meters to set up that.
So this is the way we plan it based on how many retailers are available, what is the closest proximity within five to seven minutes driving cycling distance for a consumer, how much do we need, how much reach would there be, how much can fall off of the funnel to get to the 3,600, and we think we can get there. But it's, let's say, the flywheel needs to work from a checkout to consumer point of view. And the other flywheel needs to work as well. That is, how can you accelerate the pace to deploy new APLs to get to the 20% of volume being delivered out of home, what we expect it will be in 2028. But there's also ways to look at partnership models, more open models, working together with retailers. So that is what we think we can get to. Okay.
I have one form from online. And this is the last one from online that we will take. So for all the people online, I'm really afraid that we cannot answer all your questions, but we make sure we follow up. So one form here, and then you guys can fight for the last one here. You can do that while I'm asking the question from Farhad from Jefferies. And that question is, "Are you concerned about your non-USO network and mail being opened up to competition or potentially having price regulation caps on the non-USO side of the business?"
No. It's a simple answer. If you look at the, let's say, we have one network that obviously sorts and distributes both USO and non-USO mail. And because that network is dimensioned because of the USO obligations and through net cost, we are where we are being negative.
We don't need this network set up for our commercial clients. And that's also why we say either get rid of the obligation or pay for the net cost. Could there be? There are already tariff regulations. Could there be a return on sales cap? Could be. We're at zero, and we're still making net cost. So yeah, if somebody wants to set a returns cap on 8%, it's really not the real discussion that we should be having. The discussion is, what type of universal service do you want? Who's to pay for it? And if you don't want to pay for it, reduce the obligations so that we can define the network that we need to service our commercial clients. That is the way to look at it. So I'm not worried about those type of consequences given where we are.
Thank you, Pim. Then I think we do two last questions from here. One for Stefano, one for Mark, and maybe one last then for Mark. So let's round up with three questions. Okay. Short questions, right?
Then we'll start. Because this is a rather yeah, that's a rather brief one, although it depends on the answer.
You mentioned you have 10 strategic projects. Are there a few of which you call these are real must-wins or which do you regard to be the most important one?
Well, I think quite frankly, they're all 10 are crucial. They all contribute to the strategic objectives of the three segments. And you cannot say, let's forget about compliancy. Let's focus on network efficiency. So they all need to drive the change hand in hand. Some have more impact on NPS. Some have more impact on profitability margin expansion. Others define your license to operate.
So I cannot make a choice. They don't equally contribute to the four goals, but they contribute differently to the four goals. And that's why we run it as a big change program. And also that will enable us to drive performance management culture even better in the company as well by getting them on our desks on a highly frequent basis to understand, are we taking the right initiatives, the right epics, the right features? Can we see that we get to the results that we need to get to? That is how we will manage those 10 as being equally important. Sorry about the answer, but that's how we look at it.
Okay. Then my last question. I think on the Spring and the MyParcel business, you mentioned a margin of 3%. Was that for the combination? Is that correct? That was still including the investments you need to make in building the platform. But maybe if things mature, what kind of margin should the business be able to make?
Well, I think in the end, for a business like that, approximately 3% margin is for such an asset-light model quite normal. Actually, the value is, like we explained also in the ROIC, obviously, so that we have a high return on invested capital. So yeah, we've seen the investments, and you see the investments getting in 2025, 2026. And obviously, they will, well, I would say, taper down as long as it matures. So that could give some direction. But it's in the basis already a healthy margin profile.
Yeah, but there's maybe more for the Spring business. But if you look at the MyParcel marketplace business, that could have a way higher margin. Could you maybe give a bit of an idea what we should think of?
It is higher in that part than in Spring, but the blended answer is exactly the answer that Linde has given. And over time, we'll see whether or not there could be even more potential. Some of you already said it's quite ambitious. We believe we can get to the three. And that is an interesting business model in itself, given the very, very low capital employed in Spring.
Yeah, that's for 2028, but I was thinking more maybe beyond it. Beyond that, yeah. And on the MyParcel, how big is that? Can you share us already the numbers? Because I think it's a bit new for everybody.
I would say it's a bit new. We'll be reporting from that segment as of January 2026, but give you a sense. You need to think north of EUR 100 million revenues. Definitely. Quite sizable.
Okay. Then the honor is on Stefano for the last one.
This is very easy ones. On your APLs, just wondering, what is the average locker size of the APLs, if you know that? And the second one is, by 28, the 3.6K APLs, do you have an estimate of how much volume you expect to go through your APL system? Yeah. I think on average, the current APL is, I would say, on average, I believe, 44 lockers. But over time, they will become bigger and have more lockers per machine. But right now, I think it's 44. Sorry, the 600 per year. Does that exclude any, let's say, locker that you expand?
Yeah. It is the number of machines. The number of lockers that we add is more than 600 x 44. Yeah. Exactly.
So, I don't know exactly how many lockers. There is a locker that you see; it's very successful. You will double, triple it in size. Yeah.
If it's a good location, then we extend it. Yes, obviously. Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay. Then I'll hand over to Linde for the last words.
Yes. Well, that brings us to the end of today's Capital Markets Day. Thanks a lot for being here today in the room. And of course, the participants online, also thanks for attending today. And well, on behalf of the two of us, we are looking forward to make this strategy alive. Thank you.
Thank you all.
Thank you.