Polish parcel locker company InPost has acquired Mondial Relay, a major logistics company from France. InPost will pay 565 million euros to buy Mondial Relay and thus expand its international presence.

By acquiring Mondial Relay, inPost suddenly has an immediate footprint in France, one of the largest ecommerce markets in Europe.

The acquisition, funded by new debt, will see the network of InPost expand with about 16,000 pick-up points in France, the Benelux, Spain and Portugal.

It will also boost InPost’s profits by 100 to 150 million euros in the medium term, after its profits already increased by 184 percent year-on-year in 2020.

Otto Group, the previous owner of Mondial Relay, admits that the combination of Mondial Relay and InPost is a clear win for both companies and offers them an optimal position to realize further growth potential in the fiercely competitive and rapidly growing French parcel logistics market.

InPost was founded in Poland in 1999 and offers several parcel delivery and fulfilment services for B2C and C2C deliveries. It has a network of over 12,000 parcel automated in Poland, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Last year, the company made around 249 million parcel deliveries.

According to PayPal’s President and CEO Dan Schulman, PayPal delivered record performance in 2020 as businesses of all sizes have digitized in the wake of the pandemic. In this historic year, they released more products than ever before and dramatically scaled their acceptance worldwide. The platform can boast 377 million consumer and merchant accounts at the moment.

Here’s a quick summary of the impressive 2020 financial results for the global payment leader:

• total payment volume reached $936 billion, up 31% over 2019
• net revenue was $21.45 billion (+22%), compared to $17.77 billion in 2019
• earnings per share of $3.54 (+71%)
• operating cash flow was up 44%, reaching $5.85 billion compared to $4.07 billion year-over-year.

Operating results for the year were equally impressive.

• PayPal added 72.7 million net new accounts, a 95% increase over the previous year, finishing 2020 with 377 million accounts (+29%). The number of merchant accounts totaled 29 million by year-end.
• The company processed more than 15.4 billion payment transactions, increasing 25% over the previous year. Merchant services volume increased 33%, and subsidiary Venmo handled more than $159 billion in total purchase volume (+ 56%).

Like most companies in the financial world, PayPal continues to invest heavily in new technology, digital wallet product launches, and strategic initiatives.

PayPal’s money transfer and P2P service Xoom introduced secure money transfers direct to mobile wallets in Nov in 12 African markets. With a focus on the underbanked, it has plans to add new markets in 2021. Xoom was acquired in Nov 2015 for $1.09 billion.

PayPal launched QR code payments in iZettle’s point of sale app in Dec 2020, allowing UK merchants to accept safe and secure touch-free payments from customers. Contactless payments across its network continued to grow as consumers avoided cash during the pandemic. It acquired Swedish mobile payments company iZettle for $2.2 billion in May 2018.

In May, PayPal introduced QR code checkouts. US drugstore retailer CVS Pharmacy added contactless PayPal contactless payment and Venmo QR codes at more than 8,200 locations.

More than 600,000 merchants now accept PayPal and Venmo QR codes. PayPal acquired Venmo in 2013 as part of its purchase of previous owner Braintree.

What’s ahead for PayPal?

PayPal is optimistic about 2021, projecting revenue of $25.5 billion, growing as much as 19% over this year’s record.

PayPal expects total purchase volume to grow by as much as 25% or more. Most important in terms of growth, the company expects to add as many as 50 million net new accounts in the 2021 fiscal year.

This sets PayPal up for another potential big year near the top of the global digital payments industry leaderboard. That upside will only be limited by the lingering effects of COVID-19, the impact of US and other foreign pandemic relief programs, and the continuing pace of adoption of digital payments by both merchants and consumers.

Sectigo Limited, according to its official website, is a leading cybersecurity provider of digital identity solutions, including TLS/SSL certificates, DevOps, IoT, and enterprise-grade PKI management, as well as multi-layered web security. As the world’s largest commercial Certificate Authority with more than 700,000 customers and over 20 years of experience in online trust, Sectigo partners with organizations of all sizes to deliver automated public and private PKI solutions for securing webservers, user access, connected devices, and applications. Recognized for its award-winning and best-in-class global customer support, Sectigo has the proven performance needed to secure the digital landscape of today and tomorrow. Issuing more than 100 million certificates in more than 200 countries, Sectigo continues to make strategic investments to expand its reach, capabilities, and portfolio.

Frost & Sullivan, in its turn, is a research & consulting firm that helps clients accelerate growth. It is involved in market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting, and corporate training across multiple industries. For the past 60 years, Frost & Sullivan has partnered with corporations, cities, governments, and the investor communities to identify, prioritize, and execute on new business opportunities powering clients toward a future shaped by growth.

This year Frost & Sullivan has recognized Sectigo’s efforts and has awarded them with the best practices award.

In her report Frost & Sullivan analyst Swetha R. Krishnamoorthi states that “Sectigo Certificate Manager leverages automation and single pane of glass control and simplifies issuance, discovery, renewal, revocation, and replacement. Frost & Sullivan commends Sectigo’s success in streamlining how organizations manage PKI for public and private TLS certificates.

The analyst adds that “Sectigo built an impressive certificate manager that provides organizations without large IT teams with the capability to administer TLS and PKI certificates for devices, users, and applications. With a single interface, users gain the robust and straightforward ability to administer all certificates and encryption keys for code signing, document signing, S/MIME, mobile and IoT devices, DevOps, and passwordless VPN/Wi-Fi/web applications.”

Frost & Sullivan recognizes Sectigo’s advancements in the areas of certificate discovery and automation. IoT, applications, containers, and other connected devices have proliferated at an astonishing rate, substantially increasing the number of certificates that businesses must manage and dramatically increasing the need for reliable certificate discovery and efficient certificate management.

Sectigo is committed to easing the burden of certificate management for enterprises of all sizes. In addition, Frost & Sullivan acknowledges Sectigo Certificate Manager’s efficiency, integration, and cost effectiveness, stating that “With Sectigo’s toolset, IT teams can truly manage certificates at scale and with ease.” The report goes on to say that “The range of integrations with the leading DevOps automation and orchestration platforms and applications compliant with IETF protocols enables Sectigo’s management console to minimize costs, eliminate certificate expiry, and provide the management of all certificate needs as enterprises implement their digital transformation.”

Automation, integration, and scalability are indeed the foundational pillars of Sectigo’s platform that make it easy for businesses to authenticate human and machine identities accessing their networks. Industry experts recognize the impact of automation tools, such as ACME, as well as myriad use cases that make TLS certificate management seamless.

Frost & Sullivan’s recognition underscores Sectigo’s important role in making the Internet a safer, more secure place, and Sectigo will continue to build on that commitment.