FILE PHOTO: Allegro logo is seen on a smartphone in front of a displayed stock graph in this illustration taken October 12, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
(Reuters) - E-commerce firm Allegro plans to expand its parcel locker network by 2,500 units in its home market Poland this year, as it focuses on increasing the share of parcels delivered through the service it manages, its finance chief told Reuters.
"We're really focused on increasing the share of parcels that go through what we call our managed delivery methods," CFO Jon Eastick said in a post-earnings interview on Thursday.
"Increasing that gives us more choice and control over (deliveries) and will reduce the average price as we increase," he added.
Allegro's delivery costs rose 22.9% to 2.84 billion zlotys ($736 million) in 2024. It has in recent years been increasing the share of co-financing with merchants under its loyalty programme and rolled out its own parcel lockers.
It added more than 1,000 lockers in Poland last year, exceeding 4,500 in total. It had around 500 of them in the Czech Republic.
It has also launched its own delivery programme where it takes end-to-end responsibility for the delivery, initially teaming up with Orlen, and with DHL set to join the programme soon.
In the fourth quarter, 24% of parcel volumes were managed by Allegro, it said, adding that with full 2025 price indexation, its own lockers will likely be cheaper than its most expensive supplier at the EBITDA level by end-year.
The increase of planned expenditure on logistics was a surprise, analysts at Trigon brokerage wrote in a note, adding they saw this as a negative move for parcel locker firm InPost.
InPost's shares were down 5.9% at 0946 GMT.
Allegro and InPost have a seven-year partnership agreement, and the analysts said they saw a risk of InPost losing a bigger share of Allegro's volumes when it runs out in 2027.
"When it comes to InPost, the contract is clear. So in the early months of this year, we're paying more than we were paying in 2024," Eastick said, adding that Allegro had "good relations" with InPost.
"But we have cheaper alternatives who also provide good quality and good convenience for consumers, which we ... want to leverage," he added.
($1 = 3.8578 zlotys)
(This story has been refiled to remove the repetition of the CFO's name in paragraph 2)
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; editing by Milla Nissi)
