Ofcom has recently published its "International Communications Market Report 2017" on recent developments in the communications markets (TV, Radio, Telecoms and Post). For the postal sector, the report compares the developments in Great Britain with developments in 16 foreign countries, based on selected indicators including consumer prices, volumes and revenues. The benchmark includes eight European countries (including the UK), Australia, Japan, Nigeria, South Korea, USA and the BRIC countries. Since 2013, WIK-Consult supports Ofcom in preparing the report’s chapter on the postal sector by collecting, validating and/or estimating postal data and by identifying important trends for volumes, prices and competition.
The international postal markets are seeing continued growth in parcels while letter volume has further decreased in nearly all countries. As a result of letter volume decline, tariffs have increased in many countries while quality of service partly declined, too. In contrast, parcel delivery became less expensive. Growing e-commerce, increasing use of electronic communication and advertising channels instead of paper-based communication continue to be the key postal market trends.
The report is available for download.
