Sunday 29th August 2021
7.6 million a day
Post is heading for a new parcel record
With the Corona restrictions last year and the boom in online trading, the number of parcel deliveries at Swiss Post rose by leaps and bounds. But the number of parcels will continue to rise in 2021 despite the easing. In contrast, the mail business creates problems.
Deutsche Post is expecting another record for the number of parcels delivered this year. “The first quarter in particular was extremely strong compared to the previous year, as the pandemic did not have any significant impact on online retail in the first quarter of 2020,” said the Post’s board member for the Post and Parcel Germany division, Tobias Meyer, to the newspapers the Funke media group.
“For the second half of the year we still expect moderate growth, so that for the year as a whole there should definitely be an increase in relation to the previous year,” said Meyer. In the first half of 2020, the parcel volume increased by 26 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
Deutsche Post had already set a new record in 2020 with around 1.6 billion parcels. The Post’s board of directors said that the Post had an additional effect, especially as a result of the lockdown. At the same time, the trend towards more parcels is sustainable. “In the second quarter we still transported 7.6 million parcels a day. That is almost 30 percent more than the usual annual average per day,” said Meyer.
“Hit the office” with letters
With the Christmas business in mind, Deutsche Post DHL is preparing for various scenarios. “So far we have assumed that there will be no new restrictions this year,” said Meyer den Funke Medien with a view to the measures to contain the corona pandemic. “When I look at the development of the incidences over the last week, however, I have my doubts whether it is really a direct route to normalization.”
While more and more parcels are being sent, the volume of letters is falling, according to Meyers. His company is “no longer expecting a fundamental recovery” here. The decline in the mailing of letters is a “blow to the office”, since the letter network has high fixed costs that could hardly be reduced even if the volume fell. “Economically, the decline there is therefore difficult,” he said. The costs could be offset by higher postage. The current permits from the Federal Network Agency will expire at the end of the year.
Meyer did not want to say which postage Deutsche Post DHL would propose to the Federal Network Agency. However, he made it clear in the Funke Medien: “It is obvious that our costs are rising. The wage rates have risen in recent years and we are also experiencing significant inflationary tendencies in other types of costs.
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