Preliminary 2019 results show a revenue growth trend of 4.2% for posts worldwide. Mail volumes continue to decrease but e-commerce remains an essential engine for postal growth. Many posts reporting logistics and financial services revenue saw growth in these areas.

The global postal industry reported continued growth for the 2019. Full-year 2019 results show slightly lower growth of 4.2%1 compared to 5% growth in 2018, according to preliminary results published today by International Post Corporation (IPC). The results illustrate that diversification is still paying off as non-mail services account for a growing share of industry revenue

Holger Winklbauer, CEO of IPC said: “Postal industry revenue is showing solid growth, notwithstanding ongoing traditional mail decline and many other market challenges. Many of the posts analysed reported year-on-year growth, mainly driven by e-commerce. Posts continue to work on increasing network capacity and efficiency in order to respond to higher parcel volumes, both domestically and internationally."

Winklbauer continued: “Posts have also intensified their diversification efforts and new service offerings alongside traditional mail - the share of non-mail services continued to increase in 2019. While parcels remained a key revenue driver, many posts reporting logistics and financial services revenue saw growth in these areas.” 

Complete 2019 results as well as results for the first half of 2020 will be presented in the IPC Global Postal Industry Report to be published in November 2020. The report will include a comprehensive and detailed review of the postal industry, covering over 50 postal operators worldwide and analysing key market trends as well as first implications from COVID-19 crisis. A publicly available summary, the IPC GPIR Key Findings, will also be published in November. 


For more information on the IPC Global Postal Industry Report, click here. To access the publicly available Key Findings report for last year, click here.


1 Averages for 2017 and 2018 sourced from the IPC Global Postal Industry Report 2019 and based on 50 posts. Averages for 2019 based on an unweighted mean of results of the following 41 posts: An Post, bpost, Canada Post, China Post, Correios Brasil, Correos, Correos de Chile, Correos de México, Croatian Post, CTT Portugal Post, Czech Post, Deutsche Post DHL, Eesti Post, Hellenic Post-ELTA, Hongkong Post*, Iceland Post, India Post*, Israel Post, Japan Post, Le Groupe La Poste, Lithuania Post, Magyar Posta, Österreichische Post, Poczta Polska, Pos Malaysia, POST Luxembourg, Poste Italiane, Posten Norge, Posti, PostNL, PostNord, Royal Mail, Russian Post, Singapore Post, Slovenska Posta, South African Post Office*, Swiss Post, Thailand Post, Ukrposhta, United States Postal Service, Vietnam Post. Posts marked with an asterisk (*) are not expected to publish annual results until after publication of the IPC Global Postal Industry Report 2020 in November; analyses for these posts has been based on the latest periods for which data exists.

€427.2bn
postal industry revenue
5.0%
percent revenue growth
5.6%
growth in parcel volumes