The company, which competes with larger rival Royal Mail Plc to provide mail, parcels and logistic services, said its expectations for the current year remained unchanged.

Pre-tax profit rose to 22.8 million pounds for the year ended March 31 from 17.8 million pounds a year earlier.

On an underlying basis, excluding the impact of four additional working days, pre-tax profit grew by 17 percent, UK Mail said. Each extra working day adds about half a million pounds to its profit.

Revenue leapt 7 percent to 508.5 million pounds.

Online purchases of non-food items in the UK nearly doubled during March, growing 12.8 percent from a year earlier, a British Retail Consortium (BRC) survey carried out by KPMG last month showed.

Revenue in the parcels unit - the business which includes the home delivery of online orders - grew by 16.2 percent to 219.9 million pounds in the financial year.

UK Mail, whose customers include Hornby Plc and Talktalk Telecom Group Plc, raised its final dividend to 14.2 pence per share from 12.4 pence a year earlier.

Shares in the Berkshire, England-headquartered company closed at 609.75 pence on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Esha Vaish in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)