Total postal traffic decreased by 12.4% in 2020. This decline in traffic was more significant than that observed in the previous year (-6.7%) The acceleration of the downward trend of postal traffic in 2020 is associated to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is estimated that COVID-19 had a direct negative impact of 9.8% on total postal traffic. If the pandemic had not occurred, it is estimated that postal traffic would only have fallen by 2.9%, which would have represented a less accentuated decrease than that occurred in 2019 (-6.7%).
In 2020, in contrast to the traffic of letters, editorial mail and direct mail, which declined, parcel traffic increased by 20%. The growth rate was higher than that observed in the previous year (14.1%), while the reductions that occurred in the sending of letter and editorial mail (-15.3% and -11.9%, respectively), were the most significant since this indicator started being collected (in 2012). The sending of direct mail declined by 15.5%.
In 2020, around 75.5% of postal traffic consisted of letters (78.1% in 2019), 7.6% of editorial mail (the same figure as in 2019) and 6.8% of direct mail (7% in 2019).
The postal services included in the universal service represented around 82.2% of the traffic, 2.7 percentage points less than in 2019; and 55% of revenues, 6.0 percentage points less than in the previous year.
The CTT Group ended the year with a share of around 86.1% of total postal traffic, 2.3 percentage points less than in 2019. The CTT Group had a share of the traffic covered by the scope of the universal service of approximately 90.6%, 1.4 percentage points less than in the previous year.
At the end of 2020, there were around 14.8 thousand employees operating the postal services, 75.6% of whom were CTT Group employees. The number of employees increased by 0.1% year-on-year (+20 employees in the sector total and -218 at the CTT Group).
In 2020, the vehicles, the access points and the sorting and delivery centres increased, respectively, by 22%, 8.3% and 1.7%. The growth of the number of vehicles was largely due to the fleet expansion of various priority mail providers, including the CTT Group. The increase of access points was primarily due to the operationalisation of two new parcel collection and delivery networks of two providers.
The number of CTT post offices increased by 4.3% in relation to the same quarter of the previous year, with 23 more post offices recorded, while the number of postal agencies decreased by 1.5%, continuing the network restructuring trend started in 2019.
Consult the statistical report:
- Postal services - 2020 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1604095
