Royal Mail, which has been heavily criticised in Parliament recently for failing to modernise quickly enough, said yesterday that its profits for the nine months to December 31 had reached £255 million.

This compares with £162 million for the financial year 2007-08. However, that year was hit by some of the worst industrial action for two decades.

Royal Mail said that all its four main operations were in profit for the first time in 20 years. However, it did not provide a breakdown of its profits between Royal Mail letters, the Post Office, Parcelforce and GLS, the European parcels business. The group forecast that annual profits would be twice those of the previous year.

It also said that the one-price-goes-anywhere universal service was under threat and was still loss-making. Although volumes had increased by 3 per cent in the nine months to December 31, Royal Mail expects sales to fall by about 7 per cent next year amid a migration to e-mail and a decline because of the recession. Adam Crozier, the chief executive, said: “The challenges from competition and the structural decline in the mail market are growing, not diminishing - these latest results show the progress we are making, but we still have much to do in order to secure the future of the one-price-goes-anywhere universal service to the UK's 28 million addresses.”

Royal Mail has been criticised by Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, and by MPs on the Business Select Committee over modernisation. It has spent only half of the £1.2 billion given to it by the Government two years ago for investment and will not have spent the total until 2011.

The Communication Workers' Union wants an independent audit of Royal Mail's finances, accusing it of a lack of transparency. Dave Ward, its deputy general secretary, said: “Royal Mail is again giving us mixed messages on its financial health. These results must not come at the cost of cutbacks in services, terms and conditions for staff and post office closures.”

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