Japan Post said Tuesday it posted a consolidated net profit of 2.3 trillion yen for its mail delivery, postal savings and "kampo" life insurance businesses for fiscal 2003.
In its first earnings report, the public corporation said it posted a pretax profit of 24.71 trillion yen.
Japan Post, established in April 2003 to take over the three operations from the government, said it applied accounting methods used by private-sector companies for the earnings report.
The government's key economic panel is calling for Japan Post to be privatized in between five and 10 years beginning 2007. It has a total 350 trillion yen in funds under management in its postal savings and insurance businesses.
It said it saw a profit of 27.6 billion yen in mail delivery, compared with a loss the previous year, when it was run by the government.
Although the amount of mail it handled declined, partly due to people's increasing preference for e-mail, it posted a profit by making cuts in costs and jobs.