Online commerce takes postal, courier services market in Romania to over 4bln lei in 2018 (KeysFin)

Businesses in the postal and courier sector exceeded the 4 billion lei threshold in 2018 due to the spectacular increase in product sales on the Internet, KeysFin specialists estimate in an analysis published on Monday.

"The development of online shopping has brought a real breath of fresh air in the mail and courier services market. Seen by many experts as an area in decline, due to the development of technology (electronic mail, online support services, etc.), the Post continues to remain, in 2019 as well, an essential service for the economy. The courier is at the forefront with rising volumes from year to year, with the transport of product packages being one of the areas where there is still a significant potential, evidence of that being that many companies are finding it difficult to meet the demand for services coming mainly from the digital operators sector (online stores, online HORECA services, etc.)," KeysFin says in a press release sent to AGERPRES.

The cited analysis also shows that the number of mail and courier companies rose by almost 270 percent compared to 2007, to over 1,500 companies in 2017. Currently, the sector is in a process of maturation, cost optimization being the focus. Against this background, the number of companies dropped 5 percent from 2016.

Moreover, against the backdrop of the growth in logistics services and rising demand for freight transport, business in this industry grew by 8 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year, or 130 percent over 2007, to 3.8 billion lei.

In spite of the logistical and staffing problems faced, the Romanian Post continues to remain the main player in the postal and courier market in Romania. The company, owned by the Romanian state through the Ministry of Communications and Information Society (93.5 percent) and Fondul Proprietatea (6.5 percent), registered a turnover of 1.1 billion lei (29.5 percent of the total).

Ranking second was Fan Courier Express SRL, a 100% percent Romanian private company with a turnover of 586 million lei, or 15 percent of the total. The podium is completed by Urgent Cargus S.A. (372 million lei, 10 percent of the total), DHL International Romania SRL (256 million lei, 6.7 percent) and TNT Romania SRL (253 million lei, 6.6 percent). On the whole, the top 10 companies generated almost 80 percent of the total turnover.AGERPRES(RO - author: Carmen Marinescu, editor: Daniel Badea; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)