Thank you, Operator, and welcome to you all. We have published our results over the first half of '26 this morning.

With me in the room are Pim Berendsen, our CEO, and Linde Jansen, our CFO. They will guide you through a short presentation to explain the results, and will then take your questions.

Please go ahead, Pim.

Thank you, Inge, and good morning to all of you. Thanks for joining this half-year results update.

I'll start with talking you through some key takeaways, and then some strategy slides, and Linde will then take over to go in more depth towards the financial performance. On slide 5, the highlights: resilient performance in challenging markets, revenue numbers of €1.6 billion closely and almost in line with last year, slightly improved normalized EBIT, significantly improved free cash flow.

What is important strategically is that we see the volume-to-value strategy gaining traction. That's, for instance, also can be seen in the average price per parcel that is up with 5%.

We consistently see higher growth in European e-commerce activities, and obviously declining volumes from Asian web shops, prominently also influenced by the introduction of the custom duties as per January July 1st of this year. Crucial step has been the successful implementation of the shift of standard mail to standard mail delivery within two days.

We obviously prepared for that change for the last 6 to 9 months, huge effort for all the people involved, both in the mail segment as well as in the e-commerce segment. That implementation has gone very well indeed.

We have confirmed our 2026 outlook. Basically, there's two additions to the strategy, or attention points that are noteworthy: We have launched an initiative that will bring us €75 million of additional cost savings, mainly in e-commerce as a answer to the, well, slightly unfavorable market circumstances in the e-commerce domain.

Those savings are aimed to reduce the cost price per parcel, which allows us a bit more room on the commercial side of things to optimize the volume-to-value strategy in the e-commerce segment. The second point is that we have completely redefined our out-of-home strategy to strengthen the long-term competitive position on the out-of-home domain as well.

On the non-financial KPIs, good progress has been made on the share of emission-free last-mile delivery, from 32% to 39%. We've maintained our average number one position in relevant markets in terms of NPS, and an improvement of absenteeism that still needs to come down a bit more, but at least it's trending in the right direction.

All in all, resilient performance in challenging markets. If we then move to slide 6, 7 I should say, is just to summarize the key elements of the strategy before we dive into those segments.

As we've presented this strategy in September on our Capital Markets Day. At the very top, you find our purpose, "Connected to deliver what drives us all forward."

That is basically what holds everything together. Just below, our strategic intent: We grow our business, create sustainable value, lead through innovation, and make impact that matters.

That is basically the lens through which we make our choices. Then one step down, we translate this into ambitions for our three business segments.

For E-Commerce, it's about shifting from volume to value through a differentiated approach and smarter network utilization. For Platforms, it's all about capturing international growth with asset-light models.

For Mail, it's really transforming towards a future-proof mail service. We make those transitions by 10 strategic portfolio priorities through which we manage the transition that we're looking for, and that leads then to four concrete objectives on financial KPIs, NPS, carbon efficiency, and employee engagement.

That's basically the North Star that guides all our decisions. If we then go to E-Commerce, on slide 8, we clearly have been executing on the volume-to-value strategy in intensifying external challenged surroundings.

Geopolitical uncertainty has impacted consumer spending, bringing it a bit down; confidence of consumers down. That has also ended up with market growth below our earlier expectations.

Furthermore, we see intensifying competition from new market entrants that quite often are tied or somehow related to the Asian platforms. Of course, there's a shift in market dynamics followed by the introduction of the import duty and handling fees per July 1st, and still a bit to come by November 1st.

At the same time, in terms of execution on our strategy, we're happy with the progress we're making. Much more sharper customer segmentation, more differentiated propositions, and better and more disciplined volume steering have led to better utilization of networks and margin improvements there.

Those yield measures are gaining traction, and the cost-saving momentum protects profitability, even though we look at lower volumes than last year, and also slightly lower than we anticipated in the beginning of the year. We've managed to compensate that by the yield measures we just discussed.

Important from a competitive position is that we keep our high NPS scores as being the number one for both receiving and sending e-commerce clients. As said, we have introduced a program that will lead to €75 million of additional cost savings for 2027 and 2028.

On slide 9, we follow up with clear progress, well, monetizing capacity by optimizing customer mix and product mix. Contract renewals have been secured that bring a better balance between volume and margin development.

Important negotiations, predominantly also in relation to Asian web shops, have been concluded in the second quarter. I think you can see in the half-year results that kind of capacity management and more operational steering, also on best day, and network utilization have improved operational efficiency.

The expected cost savings for '26 are according to plan. We aim to get €40 million to €50 million halfway through the year, or €24 million.

Of course, we want to maintain to be distinctive where it matters, and that's also why we offer smart delivery suggestions in check-out and focus on best-day delivery as well. Then on 10, it's in more detail the kind of the protective measures that strengthen our competitive position going forward, and that will be there to support the path towards our breakthrough 2028 ambitions in a market which is significantly challenging, and competitive positions are intensifying.

That's why we've launched the cost savings program. I think the prerequisites to be able to do so now we've worked on over the last year or so, and it will allow us now to further simplify the e-commerce organization, to even focus more in operational processes to take out costs.

A few examples, maybe: Artificial intelligence, technology allows us now even a better fill rate of roll cages. That of course limits the transport capacity that you need.

Better planning on collection also takes out routes. Those are examples of areas where we can take costs out, next to procurement initiatives around big spend categories like IT will contribute to this €75 million of savings, which will bring the total cost savings to €170 million to €180 million for this period.

Of course, in that market space where it is quite challenging, being able to reduce the cost price per parcel is important and creates a bit more flexibility in that market to make the right choices in terms of volume versus value. That's obviously helped by a reduction in the cost price per parcel, and that's why we've launched this additional €75 million of cost savings initiatives.

On the other hand, we have fundamentally revisited and redefined our out-of-home strategy. It is increasingly an important differentiator in the e-commerce space, and we really have changed it completely by taking a different view on the role of out-of-home, having a different proposition in terms of how the network set-up should be, how UX, CX needs to be, and also will require a step-up in the number of parcel lockers to 7,500 by 2020 2031.

It's really an integrated platform that seamlessly combines merchant checkout, digital customer journeys, and high-density network to accelerate the out-of-home adoption against cost price points that are attractive, and will push some of the volumes towards that out-of-home network more quickly than with the current proposition. I think what we've communicated also in the press release is that, given the magnitude of messages, we'll have a deep dive on this new strategy around October time to give a bit more insight as to what we're aiming for and how the proposition has been developed going forward.

If we then move to Platforms, as said, Platforms is all about capturing the international growth through asset-light models. We invest, as in 2026 in improving and expanding the workforce.

That will allow us in different countries to attract more clients. We have been investing in the IT landscape, and the ease of use for asset-light platforms is of course crucial, and that gives us competitive edge as well.

We've been expanding the network, predominantly the linehaul network, and we've seen double-digit growth of e-commerce volumes in mainland Europe in the first half year. Of course, we strengthen our position in Asia beyond our position in China to further derisk the business and unlock new markets there.

That is what we're strategically aiming for. If you talk about progress in 2026, as said, intensifying external challenges, of course we have seen a shift in market dynamics as Asian web shops redefine their commercial proposition and processes following the introduction of the import duty, and we see them behaving quite differently if you compare them.

That has already in anticipation of July 1st has impacted volume flows, and it's continued to do so quickly after July 1st, and we're adjusting the propositions towards that. Of course, we're there investing, like in other areas, in the elements we just discussed to expand our e-commerce base in Europe.

The performance includes those startup costs, as well as startup costs in fulfillment activities that we also guided in the beginning of the year will be a negative impact for 2026. Then let's move to Mail.

Although, as I just said in the beginning, we're very positive about the implementation to the D+2 network, it should be clear for all that urgent political decision is still necessary, because the transition to D+2 is by far not enough to get to a sustainable, affordable mail delivery in the Netherlands that is also economically viable. It would take significantly more than this step to get there, and that's why we continue to push for the necessary changes in law to be able to move to a within-three-day delivery network later.

We're still continuing discussions and legal proceedings around net costs. As the transition up to the point that we have a real full functioning D+3 delivery model are quite substantial, and we believe it's unfair that the company needs to pay for those transitional costs, because they really relate to the obligation that is put forth to us in terms of the universal service.

We have the '25 and '26 submissions already done, and we're currently preparing the application for a net cost contribution over 2027 too. Without quick and decisive action in the political domain, it stays a very, very uncertain period for our employees, consumers that use mail, and customers alike.

It's really crucial that as quickly as possible after recess, the discussions in Parliament will continue to get to a decision that gets us to an economically viable universal service. On slide 14, it's the summary of the successful transition to D+2 delivery as of July 12th and the implications for the segment performance that we also guided for in the beginning of the year.

It's really been a major transformation, both in terms of network redesign in the mail side, but of course also at the same moment in time, the letterbox parcels for a D+1 delivery have moved from Mail to the E-Commerce network. We've introduced a new tariff model to accommodate these changes for our delivery partners, and so far, we are happy with the implementation on both sides.

If you talk about the cost savings that those are in the middle, and in the beginning of the year, we said, of course, there will be cost savings for half a year. On the mail side, there will be also additional costs in relation to the implementation, but also, more importantly, additional costs related to the transfer of the letterbox parcels to the E-Commerce network.

The impact in year of this change will be around €12 million negative for Mail, but of course, is crucial and a prerequisite to be able to move to a D+3 change later on. On the E-Commerce side, full year, we expect 50 to 60 million extra items, 30 million basically around 30 million for half a year.

Also within the E-Commerce segment, it will be a negative EBIT impact for the first half of the year driven by transition costs as well. Of course, over time, that will lead to a margin-accretive business model as of 2027.

On that note, I think it's now time to look in more detail on the financial performance in total and per segment. Linde, I hand over to you to take us through those elements.

Thanks, Pim. Yes, let's move to slide 16.

Let me start with this slide showing an overview of the key reported figures per segment. For Q2, it shows volume and revenue, and for half year, we also show normalized EBIT.

Just to note, in the remainder of the presentation, I will focus on the developments on the first half year. For total PostNL, for the group as a whole, we saw, as Pim just mentioned, stable revenues and a resilient normalized EBIT in challenging markets.

Let's have a look at how that looks like per segment, starting with E-Commerce on the next slide. Overall, starting with revenue, we see in E-Commerce good progress on our targeted yield measures.

This is demonstrated by 5% increase in the average price per parcel, despite the challenging external environment, which Pim also just referred to. The revenue amounted to €937 million compared to €961 million last year, a decrease of 2.4% with volumes declining by 6.4%.

If you only take the volume-related revenue, the decline was only -1.8%. Let's dive a bit deeper into the key drivers for this, starting with domestic.

Domestic volumes declined by 4.2% due to weaker market growth, weaker than expected, and a limited market share loss, which was in line with our expectations following our volume-to-value strategy. Good to see, of course, that the decline in the second quarter was less than in the first quarter.

If you then look at our international volumes, those declined by 15%, mainly coming from our Asian web shops. This also reflects weaker market conditions, our volume-to-value strategy here as well, and the new low-cost entrants being mentioned earlier.

Very important, we also see first impacts, especially of the large Asian players, to prepare for the introduction of the import duty on the 1st of July. The volume decline overall was partly offset by a positive price/mix impact of €36 million.

That follows our further progress on our strategic yield measures, so that's sticky price increase. The €36 million includes €5 million from fuel surcharges.

These kicked in in the second quarter, and we are able to pass through the higher fuel prices, though with a small time lag. The yield measures developed in line with plan and were supported by a very limited unfavorable shift in mix.

As said, overall, the average price per parcel increased by 5% compared to half year 2025. In the last column, you see the step down in the bucket other, and that is predominantly explained by the sale of PS Nachtdistributie in Q2 last year.

Let's move on to the normalized EBIT bridge for E-Commerce on slide 18. This shows the reconciliation from €15 million in half year 2025 to €12 million in current half year.

As just explained on the revenue slide, the declining volumes driven by weaker market growth, the impact of our volume-to-value strategy, and first effects from the introduction of import duty and handling fees. The positive price/mix effect that was predominantly driven by price increases and including the €5 million fuel charges just mentioned.

The organic cost increases amounted to €38 million, including €7 million related to higher fuel costs. In the first half year, a €2 million negative gap on fuel exists.

As said before, the surcharges have a time lag, which is a common mechanism in the industry for pass-through of higher fuel prices. Overall, PostNL achieved €24 million in cost savings in the first half year, for example, through a leaner and more efficient operating model in first and middle mile and the shift to out-of-home delivery.

These cost savings were partly offset by, for example, higher costs related to sustainability and equipment designs to reduce physical workload. Remember that we expect to overall achieve €40 million to €50 million in cost savings in 2026 for E-Commerce.

Let's move on to Platforms on slide 19 with the revenue bridge. Yes, as known, there is some overlap with the e-commerce story I just explained, as part of the Spring volumes are infeed in our E-Commerce network.

Overall revenue was up 1% to €379 million compared to €375 million last half year, with volumes down -7.1%. Please note that at constant currencies, the revenue increased by 2.7% instead of 1%.

In line with our strategy, European e-commerce volumes continued to grow strongly by 28% in the first half of the year, and were offset by declining low-margin traditional mail items, which was predominantly visible in the second quarter due to phasing and the general declining trend in mail. Please note that we already transitioned to become an e-commerce player in the European market, with roughly 75% of revenue in Europe currently derived from e-commerce.

Looking at volumes, the split is a bit different: around 40% of volumes is e-commerce. In short, the demand dynamics here are growth in e-commerce and a declining traditional mail.

Looking at the Asian volumes, as mentioned earlier, declined and reflect the weaker market conditions. We see here also the impact from our volume-to-value strategy and the preparations that were initiated by the Asian web shops for the introduction of the import duty on non-EU parcels per the 1st of July.

Looking at price/mix, we see a very positive delta here. Prices were up in Europe approximately 4%, and obviously the mix effect is favorable, particularly in Europe, explained by the strong growth in e-commerce volumes versus the declining mail.

Of course, also the shift in mix between European and Asian volumes play a role. Looking at other revenue, that showed a decline and includes MyParcel, other services as, for example, fulfillment, and some intra-segment eliminations.

Let's move to slide 20 showing the normalized EBIT bridge for Platforms, showing the reconciliation from €3 million in half year 2025 to -€3 million this half year. That the root cause therefore is mainly related to our strategy to invest in international expansion.

The revenue drivers I just explained, I won't repeat that, but let's look at the costs. The organic costs for Platforms increased by €9 million, and that is mainly related to increasing third-party costs for international transport and distribution.

PostNL continues to invest, as mentioned, in the expansion of its intra-European activities, MyParcel and other services. That means more marketing efforts, expansion of staff, and investing in IT, as Pim also earlier on referred to.

For our fulfillment activities, we have opened a center in Germany this year, in the bucket other results, you also see the impact of the startup costs thereof. Good to mention that the overall net FX impact on normalized EBIT was zero.

Then moving to the last and third segment, Mail, starting with the revenue bridge on slide 28 21. Revenue rose by a half percent to €623 million compared to €620 million last year.

This is mainly explained by the combined impact from volume development and tariff increases. The mail volumes were down only 5.3% in the first half year.

The main reason for this limited decline are the elections in the first quarter of 2026 of around 19 million items. If you adjust for this election mail, volume decline was 7.9%, evidencing the continuation of the underlying trend of structurally declining mail volumes.

The impact from volume decline was more than offset by a positive price/mix effect. Stamp prices were up 6.9% as of the 1st of January of this year and 8.3% as of mid 2025.

In the bucket other, you see a €8 million decline, and that is, amongst others, related to international mail. Then moving to the normalized EBIT bridge for Mail on slide 22.

The volume decline and price/mix effects I just explained. Looking then at the costs, the organic cost increases of €15 million are mainly due to wage increases and other inflationary pressures.

Then you see the cost savings of €12 million, of which the majority is related to adjustments in sorting and delivery processes. We also see that costs for IT, partly related to the transition to D+2, which we just completed, and transport costs increased.

That about the segments. Let's now have a look at the free cash flow.

I'm really pleased with the development that we report over the first half year of 2026. We see the free cash flow coming in at €17 million minus, which is a significant improvement compared with last year.

The strong improvement reflects our continued focus on proactive working capital management, and also partly relates to prior-year phasing effects. Thanks to our well-executed cash and balance sheet management, we are on track to deliver full-year free cash flow within our outlook range.

Then let's wrap up at slide 20 24 and look at our outlook. As said by Pim, we confirm our outlook for the full year 2026, and which was shared with you on the 23rd of February.

For normalized EBIT, our outlook is between €40 and €70 million, and we expect that to translate into a free cash flow of somewhere between €0 and -€30 million. The outlook is based on an assumed total revenue growth of between 5% and 7%, where it's obviously fair to assume that we will end up closer to the lower end of the range, taking the volume development in the first half of the year into account.

As just explained, despite the volume decline, the bottom-line result was resilient, where we expect further momentum in operational efficiency going forward. In 2026, we continue to invest in our strategic focus areas, with CapEx expected to be around €125 million, while lease payments will be at the same level as in 2025.

Expected organic cost increases remain high, around €140 million, mainly labor-related and other inflationary pressures. Price increases are expected to be more than sufficient to mitigate this.

Our focus will continue to be on strong cost control and further efficiency improvements, building on our proven efforts to reduce costs. Please note that the outlook 2026 assumes limited impact from changes in treatment of the de minimis threshold in the EU and in the US, or in related customs handling and clearance fee structures.

The scope and timing could evolve during the year and could therefore impact performance. In the past half year, we have implemented a valid and working operational solutions for customs handling and clearance fees as of 1 July and later on also in November.

Furthermore, the outlook excludes the risk that prolonged geopolitical uncertainty may increase inflationary pressure and impacts consumer spending. I will now hand back to Inge.

Thank you, Pim and Linde, for explaining the results, and I hand back to the Operator to ask to explain the procedure for Q&A. Thank you.

good morning, all. A question on the e-commerce volumes.

If I recall well, you started the year with an assumption of 1% to 3% volume growth, yet we are now at -6.4% for the first half. What is fair to assume for the full year?

What is currently reflected in your guidance on volume growth? That is my first question.

A bit related to that, on the pricing, the average price per parcel went up 5%. Is it fair to assume that it will go up even further in the second half given the lag in the fuel price surcharges?

Any comments on that would be helpful. Thank you.

Yes,

thanks, Frank, for your questions. Regarding your first question on the 1% to 3% e-commerce volume growth, well, you are correct, as the developments in market growth they are lower than we anticipated at the beginning of the year.

It is fair to assume that the volumes for full year will not meet the 1% to 3% mentioned earlier. At the same time, as you also see in our current performance, the drivers underlying, price, mix, our operational efficiency, are gaining traction, and are showing also bottom-line the results, and we expect further momentum thereof in the second half of the year.

Then on your second question on the price per parcel, well, yes, of course, given our seasonal pattern, you can expect with pricing, with peak charges, et cetera, that trend will accelerate in the remainder of the year.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

I've got a few. First question is on your statement that some important contracts have been concluded in Q2.

What does that mean for the second half? I think you've just mentioned that pricing should further accelerate in the second half, but shall we also expect an improvement in volumes on a year-over-year basis versus the first half?

I guess that would be the first question. My second question is on the platform business.

In Q2, we have seen a proper slowdown of volumes versus Q1. Now, in the slides, you mentioned there was already some impact from the de minimis in Q2, but in the guidance, you don't expect any impact in the second half.

Just if you can clarify this point: What is the expectation for the volumes in the platform business, and why we shouldn't expect any impact if there are already some data out there showing some slowdown of flows from Asia to Europe? The third question is on your mail business.

Pim mentioned before that you're working on submitting your request for the cost of USO for '27, but you're still, let's say, fighting for the '25 and '26. At the same time, you received a fine for quality of service for a couple of years ago.

The backdrop sounds quite challenging in terms of negotiations. Any color you can give there, any progress you've made, any sort of confidence you have that this is going through?

Thank you.

Let's go one by one. Yes, I think as part of the volume-to-value strategy, and as not all contracts end at the same date.

There's been a lot of negotiations concluded with prominently Asian web shops also into and throughout Q2. Those contracts have now been secured, and we know against which conditions, which rates, which volume we expect to carry for them.

That will go a long way in continuing the strategy from volume to value. Of course, then overall volume that we get is still a function of how they commercially perform themselves, but those contracts work in volume brackets, if they are below a certain threshold, then also the price points will move up even more than at the baseline volumes that we contracted them on.

I think important key contract renegotiations that reinforce our conviction that we're on the right path in terms of from volume to value strategy. I think the follow-up question in relation to that was, do you expect improvement of volumes on that international side in the second part of the year, or overall?

Yes, overall, we do expect an improvement from the -6.4% to a better number full year, also based on the answer that Linde just gave on the question of Frank. I'll take question three, and then I think Linde can comment on question two.

You say challenging backdrop, yes, but at the same time, we feel strongly that it cannot be our problem that we need to pay for the transition cost, that we need to pay for net costs that are out there as a function of an obligation that is put for us. We make a distinction between kind of the ACM quality fines that are related to the quality standards in current postal law versus net costs and future required changes to the USO that make the mail business sustainable going forward.

The first one is clearly a debate with ACM, and we'll go to court because we think the fines are acceptably high, and also the basis for those fines in our perspective aren't there. With government and chambers, we continue to discuss the required changes to the postal law that will allow us to make changes to the obligation, or subsequently need net cost compensation if the obligation is not changing in a way that we can deliver the mail business against a economically viable rate.

That are the

answers on one and three. Maybe you can say something in relation to the outlook statement.

Yeah. On your question with the de minimis volumes for amongst others Platform and Asia, et cetera.

Yes, we say in our outlook that we assume limited impact. Obviously, that is still the case, we of course face ourselves now, as also mentioned by Pim earlier, impacts thereof.

However, these are the first weeks. Those parties are now also, well, trying to organize themselves and make sure how their new logistics model work, and, well, we assume overall in the long term, no structural impact for the longer term.

Therefore, we hold on to our performance. In addition to that, also good to note, as you also see in our current performance, that given our this time volume decline, we are adapting well to that to scale down and adjust our costs accordingly.

Thank you very much. If I may, just a quick follow-up on this.

You're saying that some of the international clients are adjusting the business model given the new regulation from the 1st of July. Can you give just examples of what has been made so far?

Are we seeing those clients building more warehouses or more inventories in Europe, and what does that mean for you? Are you still working for them?

Yeah.

Good question. Let me take it.

I think and there you need to be very precise. I think all relevant platforms make different choices as how they handle this current market situation.

There's platforms that basically say, "We will manage value on a basket-size basis, and we will on that basket swallow the vast majority of the €3 fee, and then maybe slightly push a bit of the external cost up through the price points of the basket." That's one option.

Basically, a client that isn't really thinking about a new logistical process, because they think they can offset this fee in the value of the basket in a split between what the consumer will then most likely pay more, and what they will take as additional cost on their side. Others take a different view, and want to move to higher-valued product categories that can substantiate those fees better, and move away from the really, really low-end, very cheap products where a €3 increase in cost is still material.

You will probably see others that will continue down the road of those low-valued goods, but then through European warehousing solutions. Increasing warehousing capacity in Europe, flying it in or cargoing it in in bulk, not as a 2C delivery parcel, but in bulk to circumvent the handling fees and duties, and then pick and pack from there, and distribute it through various carriers towards the final consumer.

There's different parties taking different roads. At the end of the day, yeah, it's all about where will the volume go, and it will be shifting in competitive landscape between those Asian platforms.

There will probably be new entrants taking the lower end of the value chain. That will potentially also be competitive implications for the European web shops, where some of the Asian players really intend to move up to higher-valued products, in which they will then subsequently compete with the current existing European platforms in those spaces.

A lot is going on there, and, yeah, we of course follow this closely. It's important that we maintain a good share of wallet in the most important clients that are willing to pay for service.

That is what we secured throughout the contracts that I've given you answer on in one of your earlier questions. That's how the market evolves at this point in time.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Compliments for the degree of disclosure of numbers, which makes me very happy.

Despite that, I have a couple of questions. Pim, you talked a lot about the platform business and about the Chinese business.

The last week, I listened into the CTT conference calls. They said that CTT had suffered because a lot of volume was now flowing into the Benelux countries, instead of Madrid, for example, into the Central and Eastern European countries.

What am I missing in the case of Spring, because we see a quite clear dip in the Asian volumes at Spring? Is that pure value over volume, or is it something else?

What is triggering the European volume so much? Does it have to do with the opening of the fulfillment center in Germany?

I believe that was for one of the Chinese, Spanish, fast-moving, retailers. The second question I have is on e-commerce, and about domestic volumes in particular.

You've been deliberately giving up some market share by means of the value-over-volume strategy, and if I look at the average value per parcel, if I look at the slide, I believe it is slide 16, the development of the EBIT, it's quite clearly visible that improves your yields. How far can you go in giving up volume, because at the same time, we see parties like GLS, that was doing a lot of work for the Chinese, Dragonfly is coming in, handling volume for Amazon, we have Joyexpress, a new name, out there, has 85% nationwide coverage, at least that's what they claim, traditional players stepping up in process has entered the market as well.

How do you deal with that? Is the cost savings element, reducing the cost per item is of course one part of the story, but what can you do to make the volumes grow again?

Then the final question I have is on Mail. In December, there was a ruling by the CBb on the merger with Sandd.

I know it's a sensitive subject. ACM basically got it right, and basically was saying, we're going to see how we deal with this situation right now.

Have there been any developments on that front? Those were my questions.

Thank you, Henk. The first question has some, well, sub-questions, correct me if I've not, let's say, answered them completely.

I think there's a couple of elements to that that I want to single out. I think Spring Europe's e-commerce volume is the double-digit number that Linde talked about, and that is a function of expanding the pan-European linehauls from Italy to Spain, from Spain to Germany by attracting local clients that fill those trade lanes and bring us in a more competitive position.

Not necessarily always, but there also the fulfillment proposition comes into play, and that's really, well, not capital-intensive fulfillment activities where we also manage warehouses and fulfillment activities for bigger clients that want to ship throughout Europe. I think there the growth is as we would like it to be, is a function of the platform growth plan that we launched in September, and as said, is going according to plan.

The overall Spring volumes are depressed by the development in quarter, by phasing on the European international mail volumes that don't contribute that much, in terms of revenue, not that significant, but in terms of volume, that makes a very good 28% e-commerce volume growth diluted a bit. On the Asian side, I don't see more volume coming to Amsterdam or Liège.

What we do see is that our custom clearance solution is working and has been working from the get-go, which is of course important because that clarifies towards consumers under which conditions they can still buy from other parties, and we're able to administer and also fulfill the custom duties in the chain. I think there, of course, we already saw, based on examples that we've had in Romania and Italy, that goods in transit has been a big issue.

In other words, how do we exactly know that a product that is bought just before July 1st doesn't get any duty if it accesses the country on July 1st or July 2nd? That has basically led a lot of those parties to three, four weeks in advance stop marketing campaigns, not push more products towards Europe to avoid goods in transit being treated in a different way.

That has impacted Q2 numbers. We've of course seen the drops in volume.

We also now see the Asian web shops adjusting their business model, adjusting their pricing strategies, re-entering the marketing arena to do the marketing campaigns again, and that's why we said that we don't expect a longer-term structural impact that is going to be material in terms of EBIT contribution from those changes. That could, in the meantime, still lead to very volatile volume developments.

We quite often have share of wallet arrangements with those parties, although there's new entrants, they sometimes, forced by our volume-to-value strategy, have kicked out other carriers, and now our share is just a function, basically, on how successful they are to adjust their commercial models after the July 1st implementation. I think that is the answer on the first set of questions.

If you then go to the e-commerce domestic volume, yes, this is a delicate balance between volume development, yield, and market share. I think the market share loss is within the boundaries of what we find acceptable.

Domestic volume development is obviously also impacted by lower consumer spending, I think the flywheel of yield improvement could have worked even better with a bit more consumer spending as we also anticipated in the beginning of the year. To alleviate or to compensate or to derisk on this dilemma or these commercial game plans, it's obviously helpful to reduce your cost price per parcel, and that's why we introduced the 75 additional costs.

Another point on competitive landscape is our redefined out-of-home strategy will also be significantly better equipped to compete with some of the other players you mentioned. That also strengthens our competitive position, and over time will also strengthen the domestic volume development.

Far, not unsatisfied with the domestic performance, but a close monitoring of market share development and yield and volume increases remains crucial, and that's what we do on a daily basis. That's also why it's important to look at the answer that Linde gave, that we have been able to adjust the network and create efficiencies in the network utilization so that yield isn't suffering that much with lower volume than anticipated.

On the third point, yes, this is sensitive. I don't think the CBb said that ACM got it right.

They said something about the permit and on a 2018 basis. It's up to ACM to do their research.

Of course, we feel that there's no need at all to amend anything. We've adhered to the conditions of the permit.

The permit was there at the day that we acquired Sandd, and was there when we integrated the business. Let's say I don't have clarity right now as to where ACM is in their research or in their investigation.

I cannot tell you more about it right now.

Okay. Thank you very much for your extended answers.

Good morning, everybody. One question left.

Can you give a bit more color also on the phasing, and what is behind the additional €75 million of cost savings? How should we phase it in the model, and, yeah, what is really the driver of the €75 million?

That's it. Thanks.

Yes, thanks, Marc. As mentioned, it is mainly within E-Commerce, but also in the related support functions, HR, finance, IT.

We refer to the phasing for the total both years, 2027 and 2028. I would say you can calculate with approximately 50/50 over the both years involved.

That's clear. Thank you very much.

Hi, thank you for taking my follow-up question. I've just got one again on the business model of the platform business, because you were mentioning before non-capital-intensive fulfillment activities.

You were making an example of Italian volumes into Spain, Spain to Germany, and so on. Can you just explain to us really what is the activity here, and how you're offering non-capital-intensive fulfillment center activities, please?

Is this the business model doing more of that in the next years? Thank you.

It is really what it is. If there's clients that say, "We're happy with the logistical solution, but can you also help me out with fulfillment activities?"

, we, in conjunction with that client, think about the best way to do so. Quite often it's, for instance, a lease obligation the client takes, and we just operate the location.

Sometimes it's us taking the leasehold, but back-to-back commitments from the client to compensate for that. Given the type of business we're in, given the type of clients, the Spring country support, it's not highly automated fulfillment activities.

It's, for the largest part, traditional pick and pack with some efficiency improvements there, and that's why it is less capital-intensive than for other segments.

Got it. Is the plan to, let's say, build up a proper fulfillment business, which is unrelated to the...

Only in relation to our European growth business, and only in relation to the type of customers that Spring serve, so that will not lead to big investments in fulfillment centers. It's an organically developing model only to the extent that it helps us creating more density in the pan-European trade lanes, to make Spring even more competitive.

Thank you. Given that I've got the opportunity also to maybe ask a last one: When we think about the new €75 million cost savings, shall we think about those cost savings as an offset to, maybe, lower volume decline, or a way to protect your margins, or this is actually in your business plan offered a further upside to where you think you were?

It is,

as I said, it's really derisking, created room to maneuver in slightly more competitive market circumstances. Don't add this just to the ambitions of 2028.

It will derisk the plan. If that comes with slightly better volume development, then performance will accelerate beyond the ambition.

Let's get first to the ambition levels that we set for 2028, and this derisks this for the combination of the factors that you said. It could help derisking a slightly lower volume development; it could help being more precise as to which price points on the volume-to-value strategy we want to entertain; it helps maintaining the market share at the level we think we need to maintain it for; and it actually then, as said, derisks the commercial elements of the E-Commerce plan and gives us more confidence that we can get to the 2028 objectives.

Okay. When you say that will add up to €170 to €180 million, you are adding this cost to, the sort of

That was €170 to €180 is the total number of cost savings over the period where this 75 has been now included in. In total.

The base you're adding this €75 million cost on is the group cost savings, or is specifically e-commerce, or...

It's mainly e-commerce, because we do this to derisk for the competitive environment in e-commerce, but as Linde said, it also involves some support functions that are also working on behalf of e-commerce. It aims to impact the e-commerce cost base.

Very clear. Thank you.

Thank you all for joining today. If you have any questions, you know how to reach us.

Thank you, and speak to you in October.