Postal Services Industry Profile

Companies in this industry collect, transport, and deliver mail and small parcels. Major companies include Deutsche Post DHL (Germany), Japan Post, La Poste (France), and the US Postal Service.

The global courier, express, and parcel market was valued at about $540 billion, according to Business Research Insights. Logistics and transportation firms may struggle finding a stable revenue growth path due to similarity in services offered.

The US Postal Service (USPS) includes 31,000 post offices with combined annual revenue of about $80 billion in fiscal year 2023.

Providers of express delivery services are covered in a separate industry profile.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand depends on transaction volume and corporate spending on direct marketing. The profitability of individual companies depends on the efficiency of their operations. Large companies have advantages in widespread infrastructure and diversity of services. Small companies compete by specializing.

Government-owned postal agencies typically have a monopoly on mail delivery, but face heavy competition from private package delivery companies. The competing entities can form partnerships to capitalize on each other's strengths; for instance major express delivery companies Federal Express (FedEx) and United Parcel Service (UPS) contract certain residential deliveries to the US Postal Service (USPS), while the USPS contracts air transportation out to FedEx and UPS. In countries where mail delivery has undergone privatization, former postal monopolies are better able to compete in ancillary fields such as logistics and freight services.

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