Liberalized postal services' traffic increases 15.5% in the 4th quarter of 2005

In the 4th quarter of 2005 the traffic of postal services operated in competition - mailed correspondence whose price is above three times the reference tariff, as long as it weighs more than 100 grams - reached 68 million objects. This accounts for 20.2% of the overall postal traffic and is a 15.5% increase on the previous quarter, and a 1% year-on-year decrease.

National postal traffic totalled around 63 million objects and the outgoing international traffic about 5 million objects.

Both traffic components - national and outgoing international - had quarterly increases of 16% and 14%, mainly due to the companies in Grupo CTT.

In the liberalized area, Grupo CTT was responsible for 93.8% of national traffic, with an 89% share in the outgoing international traffic. The remaining operators have a 28.3% share in the incoming international traffic.

During this period, five million of the 68 million postal objects within the competition regime belong to the express mail category and 63 million objects to the remaining service categories. Express mail stands for 8% of the overall traffic operated in competition, while the remaining categories made up 92% of the total.

In this quarter, traffic of postal services not included in the express mail category increased 15.8%, while express mail services grew 12.2%.

Regarding express mail, increase in this traffic was mainly influenced by the companies of Grupo CTT in the distribution of national addressed correspondence. Growth in the distribution of books, catalogues, newspapers and other periodicals by Grupo CTT was the main responsible for the quarterly increase in the services not included in the express mail category.

Regarding the same period of last year, express mail traffic grew 24.3%, while the traffic of services not included in this category fell around 2%. This evolution of the services not included in the express mail category was mainly influenced by companies of Grupo CTT and, particularly, by the decrease in this period in the distribution of national addressed correspondence and of books, catalogues, newspapers and other periodicals.

In the 4th quarter of last year, companies of Grupo CTT held a 41.2% share in express mail traffic, 1.6 more than in the previous quarter, and of 97.9% in the traffic of services not included in the express mail category.

Provision of postal services operated in competition requires an authorization or licence, depending on whether the operator provides express mail services or services not included in the express mail category.

At the end of 2005 there were 36 entities with authorizations to provide express mail services and six operators licensed for the provision of services not included in the express mail category.

Consult:

Quarterly reports by service http://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=277884