During the first quarter of 2008, traffic from postal services operated in competition totalled about 70.3 million items, down 9.4% on the previous quarter and down 4.1% on the same quarter of 2007. Generally the first quarter of each year is characterised by a drop-off in traffic following the Christmas and the New Year period.
National postal traffic totalled around 65 million objects, making up 92% of total postal traffic operated in competition, with outgoing international traffic registering almost 6 million objects.
The decline seen was principally driven by national traffic, which fell by around 10% over the previous quarter. This, in turn, can be explained, above all, by the figures for addressed publicity of Grupo CTT.
Compared to the same period of the previous year, national traffic fell by 4.1%, due in particular to the trend in editorial mail.
Outgoing international traffic grew by 0.2% over the previous quarter, but fell by 4.3% in comparison with the same quarter of the previous year.
In the liberalised area, Grupo CTT was responsible for around 94% of national traffic and for around 81% of outgoing international traffic, down 3.1 percentage points on the previous quarter.
The trends seen in Grupo CTT's share of outgoing international traffic are due, not only to a downward trend in CTT traffic, but also to a temporary increase in editorial post distributed by alternative providers.
In this period, about 5 million of the total 70 million liberalised postal objects fell within the express mail category, with around 66 million being encompassed by the remaining service categories.
In this quarter, the traffic of services covered by the express mail category fell by 9.1%, mostly driven by the figures for national postal parcels. Meanwhile services outside the express mail category saw a fall of 9.4%. This fall mostly driven by the trend in Grupo CTT editorial and addressed publicity mail in the national segment.
The growth in express mail, compared to the same period of 2007 (+7%) is likewise explained by figures for parcels. The fall in non-express traffic was negatively impacted by trends in editorial mail.
Regarding the offer structure, the companies of Grupo CTT held a 43.1% share of express mail traffic and a 96.6% share of non-express mail traffic.
Consult:
- Postal services https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=277884
