Royal Mail has made a bid to improve its parcels delivery service by investing £130 million in thousands of hand-held devices
The company said 76,000 devices will be given to postmen and women from next year, offering more flexible deliveries for people not at home so items can be left elsewhere, as well as better tracking.
Royal Mail will hope to receive a boost from the announcement after becoming one of the FTSE 100's biggest faller yesterday.
Its shares fell 7.4p to 445.9p after Credit Suisse issued a downbeat note predicting levels of profitability recorded in 2014 will not be reached again until 2018.
Nick Landon, managing director of Royal Mail Parcels, said: "We are delighted to announce our investment of around £130 million in IT, which will better enable us to develop new services for parcels customers.
"This is part of our ongoing programme to continue to respond to the needs of our customers and maintain our leading position in the UK parcels market."
Luis Alvarez, chief executive officer of BT Global Services, said: "We're passionate about helping leading organisations like Royal Mail blend the latest technologies with their people's skills and experience to get the best business results - something we call the art of connecting.
"The new hand-held devices, provided and managed by BT, will transform parcel tracking, helping Royal Mail create an even better connection with its customers."
Additional reporting by PA
