By Mauro Orru 
 

Deutsche Post AG said Tuesday that net profit for the fourth quarter increased as e-commerce continued to grow, and the company raised its midterm targets through 2023.

The German freight-and-logistics group said quarterly net profit rose to 1.30 billion euros ($1.54 billion) from EUR858 million for the fourth quarter of 2019.

Quarterly revenue rose 13% to EUR19.12 billion while earnings before interest and taxes jumped 56% to EUR1.97 billion, nearly in line with preliminary figures pre-announced in January.

Deutsche Post said it expects a further significant increase in EBIT to more than EUR5.6 billion in 2021, assuming e-commerce continues to grow.

For 2021, the company is also expecting free cash flow of around EUR2.3 billion and gross capital expenditure of around EUR3.4 billion.

The company raised its midterm targets for the period to 2023. It now expects EBIT to increase to more than EUR6 billion in 2023 and generate cumulative free cash flow between EUR7.5 billion and EUR8.5 billion between 2021 and 2023 compared with a previous forecast for 2020 to 2022 of more than EUR6 billion.

Cumulative capital expenditure from 2021 to 2023 should be between EUR9.5 billion and EUR10.5 billion compared with previous forecasts for 2020 to 2022 of around EUR9.5 billion.

Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com; @MauroOrru94

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 09, 2021 01:37 ET (06:37 GMT)