Parcel volumes grew by 43% for postal operators in the second quarter of this year as the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the postal industry’s long-term structural transformation, new IPC figures released today showed.
The rapid growth of e-commerce worldwide during 2020 has left postal operators delivering many more parcels and far fewer letters, according to the IPC Global Industry Report 2020 Key Findings.
Holger Winklbauer, CEO of IPC, commented: “E-commerce parcels and packets continue to drive postal growth. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns have uplifted e-commerce further and fast tracked other digital trends. This crisis is accelerating the structural shift from mail to parcels across the postal industry.”
Slower average revenue growth in H1, 2020
Despite strict lockdowns and many economies entering recession, posts across the globe continued to provide citizens with essential services in the first half of 2020. Mail volume plunged and parcels soared during the first wave of the pandemic, and the financial impact of the crisis varied across posts, IPC said.
On average, and across the smaller subset of posts that publish interim reports, revenue growth fell to 1.3% year on year in H1 2020. Addressed mail volumes plummeted by 33% among IPC members.
However, parcels saw explosive growth, rising by 43% during the April – June 2020 period, when many countries were under lockdown restrictions.
With global e-commerce sales already growing over 20% per year on average from 2009 to 2019, pre-pandemic forecasts suggested they could roughly double between 2019 and 2024. “But recent trends suggest the COVID-19 crisis will pull this timeline forward,” IPC commented.
Posts show resilience during COVID-19 crisis
With citizens at home and retailers putting up the shutters, e-commerce rocketed during lockdowns. Posts quickly adapted their networks to deliver the unexpected spike in volume which, in many countries, was higher and much more sustained than any previous peak, IPC pointed out.
Posts also reported other key trends during the crisis: B2C deliveries increased across most product segments, from grocery to garden, though trends shifted as lockdowns evolved; local SMEs sent more parcels; deliveries to the home increased; and postal webshops saw online sales rise as footfall in post offices fell.
Winklbauer added: “Posts faced many operational challenges due to the pandemic but were quick to respond. Despite the disruption, recent IPC research reveals that while in lockdown, close to four fifths of surveyed consumers were satisfied with the delivery speed of their online orders and noticed little or no disruption to postal services.”
E-commerce drives industry growth in 2019
This year’s trends reinforced the key results of 2019 when e-commerce packets and parcels remained the industry growth engine, with parcels and express revenue increasing by 6.4% (€6.6bn) on a 5.6% rise in volumes.
Mail revenue grew €0.3bn (+2.3%) as structural volume declines were offset by rate increases and growth in lightweight packets. Mail accounted for just under a third of total industry revenue in 2019, according to IPC figures.
Overall, global postal industry revenue increased by 5% to €427.2bn in 2019, an increase of €6.3bn on the previous year.
The IPC Global Postal Industry Report 2020 covers 53 postal operators from Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and BRICS countries, as well as integrators UPS and FedEx.
