Greeting card firm Moonpig cuts forecast as Royal Mail strikes hit orders

Dec 7 (Reuters) – British greeting card company Moonpig (MOONM.L) lowered its annual revenue forecast on Wednesday and reported lower first-half profit as its orders in September and October was hit by postal strikes at Royal Mail.

Workers across Britain, including more than 115,000 Royal Mail postal workers, have taken strike actions and warned of more during the busy festive season, demanding pay hikes to deal with a worsening cost-of-living crisis amid sky-high inflation.

Moonpig, which largely operates in the UK and uses Royal Mail’s postal delivery service, last week warned of delays to the First Class card deliveries due to the strikes at the former British postal monopoly in November and December.

The company, which offers both online greeting cards as well as personalised physical greeting cards, now expects revenue for the year ending April 30 to be around 320 million pounds ($388 million), down from its previous forecast of 350 million pounds.

Moonpig’s pretax profit more than halved to 9.1 million pounds for the six months ended Oct. 31.
($1 = 0.8253 pounds)

Reporting by Amna Karimi in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza

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