Industry in brief DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY & POSTAL AFFAIRS, CHARLES NEILSON PROVIDES HIS REGULAR ROUND-UP OF INDUSTRY NEWS.
Ofcom issued its annual monitoring update on the postal market in November, here is an overview of their findings. Ofcomannual monitoring of the postal market
Parcel volumes continue to grow In the parcel market volumes and value continue to grow with 1.987 billion parcels delivered in the UK with a value of £8.245 billion. However competition in this area has seen a small average unit revenue decrease to an average of £3.31 per item. Unsurprisingly there is a significant difference in the volumes and values that are delivered domestically and internationally. Domestic parcels account for 82% of the volume and 66% of the value, international outbound accounts for just 8% of the volume and 22% of the value and finally international inbound accounts for 10% of the volume and 12% of the value. We’re pleased to see that Access volumes remain stable and have been so for several years (ignoring the impact of our withdrawal from end-to-end delivery and return to DSA). With our growing focus and capability in both the UK and international markets, and the backing of our highly efficient collection, trunking and depot infrastructure, we’re well placed to provide a one-stop-shop for your mail and parcel needs.
Royal Mail managed tomiss five out of its eight performance targets in the year butmost of themisseswere nearmisses. Despite this performanceboth residential andbusiness consumerswere generally happywith the servicewith85%saying theywere very or fairly satisfied comparedwith 73% (residential) and 77% (business) in theprior year. Interestingly, business customerswere also asked to rate several aspects of the service for satisfaction. They rateddelivery consistency (74%) and items deliveredundamaged (87%) highlywhereas only 39%were very or fairly satisfiedwith theprice of postage. Decreasing people costs long termmust remain a strategic priority for Royal Mail since it still accounts for some two thirds of Royal Mail’s cost base. DSA volumes remain stable In the mail market Access volumes have remained stable at 7.1 billion items, helped in part by the return of our end-to-end volumes. The market overall declined to 12.28 billion items giving Access a 58%market share overall. Royal Mail’s retail and USO business showed a decline to 5.1 billion items.
Access Contract Review2016
Royal Mail launched a consultation on a number of possible contract changes in September 2016. This included dropping the requirement for the zonal indicator on zonal Mailmark postings, allowing actual data tomeasure Fall to Earth rather than sampled data, changing the mathematics of the Urban Density Measure and removing the tolerances for holders of two price plans. Whilst many of the proposals have merits, there are significant concerns from the industry about the removal of tolerances – Royal Mail received 15 responses to its consultation overall. Happily, Royal Mail has decided to pause and reflect on the content of the responses and will invite further comment from the industry in 2017 to see if a satisfactory solution can be found for all parties. Here at Whistl we will of course play an active part in these discussions on your behalf.
10 Whistl Magazine • Winter 2017
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