In 2014 there were twice as Many Postal Parcels Processed as in 2013

According to the Statistical data report on the 2014 postal services market published by ANCOM, 2.3 times more postal parcels were processed in Romania last year, compared to 2013, 90% of which were processed by private providers. The total postal traffic kept a moderately growing trend in 2014, registering an increase by more than 10%, i.e. exceeding 600 million items. Out of these, over 95% were processed by the universal service provider and by other ten large volume private operators.

Out of the 623 million postal items registered in 2014, more than 80% were letter post items (over 521 million), approximately 10% - parcels (62 million), 1.4% - Express items (8.7 million), the rest of 5% direct mail items (18.8 million), money orders (8.3 million), respectively items of correspondence and printed matter weighing more than 2kg (4 million). Almost 593 million were domestic postal items and more than 30 million – cross-border items.

Thus, one can deem that a Romanian sent, on average, almost 32 postal items in 2014, by 20% more compared to the previous year. However, one of the grounds of this growth is the decrease in the statistical figures regarding the population considered for the total postal traffic, in 2014.

More than 90% of the revenues in the postal market in 2014 were achieved by 15 providers, including the National Company Romanian Post (CNPR), which processed over 97% of the total postal items processed last year. The share of active providers remained approximately 60% of all the authorised postal operators (237 active providers out of the 371 authorised ones), in 2014, but the number of entities that expressed their intention to become postal service providers decreased, compared to 2013.

Whereas the total volume of postal items processed by CNPR in the past 5 years witnessed insignificant variations, the traffic achieved by the other postal operators in the market registered a constantly growing trend, with an increase by more than 40% in 2014, compared to 2013.

The traffic of items within the scope of universal service kept falling in 2014, reaching the lowest level in the past 5 years - 227 million items, by more than 35% less than in 2013. Last year, private providers processed by 55% more items within the scope of universal service compared to 2013, whereas the traffic processed by CNPR in this market segment dropped by more than 65%.

In 2014, the postal items within the scope of universal service, representing over 60% of the total postal traffic, continued the upward trend of the past 5 years, the most considerable growth being registered in 2014, i.e. by more than 90% compared to 2013, this market segment being almost totally (more than 95%) disputed by the first ten large volume providers.

In 2014, almost 180,000 complaints regarding postal services were received, approximately 30% of which were proved to be grounded. 18,700 complaints were settled by award of damages amounting to RON 4,175,261. A ratio of the total postal items by number of complaints shows that there was one complaint per 3,505 postal items, one grounded complaint per 12,329 postal items and, that on average, one in approximately three complaints was settled by award of damages.

The full Report on the 2014 postal services market din Romania and a comparative analysis of the postal traffic for 2010 - 2014 are available, in Romanian, here.