Total traffic from postal services fell 3.5% in the third quarter to 268 million objects. Compared to 3rd quarter 2009, traffic fell by 1.6% in a period of the year which is marked by a regular drop in traffic volumes.
These variations result above all from the trend reported in postal items included in the reserved area, which represent 79% of the total.
Of the total number of objects distributed during the quarter, around 96% were destined for the national market, while the remaining 4% were destined for the international market.
By type of object, around 98% of postal traffic is comprised by correspondence (which includes addressed publicity and editorial mail), which fell by 3.6% over the quarter and 1.7% year-on-year. Meanwhile parcels saw a decline of 1.6 over the previous quarter while increasing 4.8% in year-on-year terms, representing just 2% of total traffic by type of object.
Meanwhile, an average of 25.2 postal objects were distributed in the quarter per inhabitant, 0.9 fewer objects than in the previous quarter and 0.4 fewer objects per capita than in the 3rd quarter of 2009.
Traffic of the liberalised area represents around 21% of all postal items in the period, declining 4.4% over the previous quarter and by 1.7% year-on-year.
In the segment open to competition, the volume of national postal traffic fell by 5.9% compared to the previous quarter to around 52 million objects. Meanwhile outgoing international traffic increased to around 4.8 million objects.
The variations in national and outgoing international traffic are essentially explained by the changes seen in the volume of the national correspondence of CTT.
National traffic now represents 92% of total postal traffic operated in competition, while outgoing international traffic represents the remaining 8%.
In the liberalised area Grupo CTT is responsible for 88% of national traffic and around 79.9% of international outgoing traffic.
In this period, 6.3 million of the total 56.7 million liberalised postal objects fell within the express mail category, with around 50.3 million being encompassed by the remaining service categories.
A decline of 1.9% was reported in relation to express mail compared to the previous quarter with an increase of 7.2% year-on-year. This increase is due above all to the increase reported in the number of national parcels of the largest providers of the service.
In terms of the offer structure, it can be seen that in 3Q10 the companies of Grupo CTT retained a share of 38.1% of express mail traffic and 93.5% of non-express mail traffic.
Consult:
- Postal Services - 3rd quarter 2010 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1063889
