In 2023, there were 535 million postal items reported in Portugal, decreasing by 4.9% compared to 2022.
Correspondence made up around 71.5% of this postal traffic, editorial mail made up 7.2% and direct mail 7.1%. Parcels represented 14.2% of total traffic, an increase of 1.7 percentage points versus 2022.
Compared to the same period of 2022, direct mail, editorial mail and correspondence traffic fell by 9.1%, 6.7% and 6.5% respectively, while parcel traffic increased by 8.2%.
Average revenue per item increased from the previous year (+6.7%), maintaining the growth trend that emerged in 2018. Over the year, the increase in revenues resulted mainly from growth in unit revenue from correspondence, driven by the price increases applied by CTT on 01 March 2023, and from a shift in traffic structure towards postage parcels (+1.7 percentage points in terms of traffic and +2.2 percentage points in terms of revenues).
Postal services within the scope of the Universal Service made up 78.8% of traffic and 49.4% of revenue. Compared to 2022, Universal Service traffic fell by 6.3% and decreased by 1.2 percentage points as a proportion of total traffic. Meanwhile, universal service revenues increased by 0.3% and shrank by 0.6 percentage points as a proportion of total revenues.
Grupo CTT reported a share of around 83.3% of postal traffic, 1.8 percentage points less than in 2022. With regard to traffic covered by the universal service, Grupo CTT reported a share of around 90.0%, declining 0.4 percentage points from the previous year. Meanwhile, Grupo CTT's share of parcel traffic was reported at 46.8% (-0.8 percentage points versus the previous year).
In 2023, there were around 15.2 thousand people employed in the operation of postal services (+4.5% compared to the end of 2022). The number of employees at Grupo CTT increased by 3.9% while the number of employees at other providers increased by 6.1%. At the end of the period, the proportion of Grupo CTT staff reached 70.8% of total staff (-0.4 percentage points versus the previous year).
The number of network access points increased by 16.2% from the previous year, while the number of distribution centres increased by 0.2%.
The number of CTT post offices was unchanged from the previous year, while the number of postal service offices increased by 0.2% with the addition of four offices compared to 2022.
Consult the statistical report:
- Postal services in 2023 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1775821
