ANCOM: In 2019, more than three quarters of domestic parcels were delivered within one day

”ANCOM’s statistical data report on the Romanian postal services market in 2019 shows a slight downward trend in the market, by 3% on the total traffic level, as well as on the level of the 3 billion lei total revenues. The decrease in certain segments was significantly compensated by the increase in parcel traffic by 27% for the second year in a row, due to the booming e-commerce in Romania and across the globe. The parcel segment generated three quarters of the revenues from postal services in 2019 “, said Eduard Lovin, ANCOM vice-president.

Postal traffic in 2019

Of the total of 561 million postal items (down 3% compared to 2018), most were correspondence items (65%), 26% were parcels, the rest being other categories of postal items. The average number of postal items per capita was 29, of which 19 correspondence items and 8 postal parcels.

Postal parcels

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Parcel traffic increased by 27% to 146 million and generated more than 2.2 billion lei in revenues, i.e. an average revenue per parcel of over 15 lei (13 lei for a domestic parcel, sent within Romania, compared to 105 lei for a cross-border parcel, sent from Romania to other countries).

Domestic parcels were delivered on average within 1.4 days from their submission in the postal networks, 78% of which were delivered the next day, while only 1% were delivered in 5 days or more. As expected, 9 out of 10 parcels were delivered to the addresses specified by customers (home, office), less than 1% being delivered through automated systems.

Items of correspondence

Despite their holding a share of 65% of the total postal traffic in Romania, items of correspondence and printed matter generated only 22% of the market revenues, the average revenue obtained from such an item being 1.8 lei.

Such a domestic item generated an average of 1.5 lei and reached the addressee in 2.9 days on average, which is twice the delivery time compared to that of a parcel.

Value of postal service market

In 2019, the total value of the postal service market was 3.04 billion lei, i.e. 3% less compared to 2018. Thus, the average revenue per inhabitant obtained by the postal service providers in 2019 was 157 lei.

Considering the total revenues from postal services, in 2019 the main competitors in the Romanian postal services market were: Fan Courier with 23% market share, The National Company Romanian Post with 21%, and Urgent Cargus with 12% of the total revenues in the market.  

Universal service

The traffic of postal items within the scope of universal service amounted to 193 million items in 2019 (7% more compared to 2018). Out of the total number of items within the scope of universal service, 84% were domestic items (163 million, increasing by 13% compared to 2018) and 16% were cross-border postal items (30 million items).

In 2019, the postal services within the scope of universal service distributed 27.7 million payslips for social welfare rights and information documents issued by the National House of Public Pensions.

Thus, the universal service accounted for 34% of the postal traffic and for 19% of the total revenues from postal services.

Complaints regarding postal services

In 2019, the total number of complaints received by postal service providers increased by 12% (627 thousand complaints). However, the share of those deemed grounded (105 thousand) remained 17% of the total. 48 thousand of them were settled by payment of compensatory damages totalling 14.3 million lei, on average such payment amounting to 269 lei (increasing by 6%). The full report on the Romanian postal services market in 2019 is available, in Romanian, here.