Postal Services
Description
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 (CEP) market was valued at about $430 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach about $1.1 trillion in 2034, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2%, according to Market.us. 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 2024.
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.
All types of mail and parcel delivery providers experience increasing competition from email and secure document transmission providers.
PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY
Major sources of revenue for the US Postal Service (USPS) include first-class mail (about 30%), shipping and package services (40%), and marketing mail (20%). Other services include delivery of international mail and periodicals (magazines and newspapers). Some postal establishments provide express delivery, logistics, and insurance and banking services.
Letter and small parcel receiving and delivery activities are highly manual. For the USPS, sorting processes are mechanized. Once collected, mail is trucked from community post offices to processing plants, where machines separate mail according to size and shape and orient parcels for postmarking, stamp cancellation-line printing, and optical address scanning. Each item receives a unique fluorescent bar code, as well as a printed bar code that indicates the specific delivery address. Letters are sorted into bins based on zip codes and flown or trucked to regional processing plants, where they are further sorted by carrier and delivery order and then distributed to individual post offices and carrier delivery vehicles.
Bulk transportation of mail is typically contracted out to freight transportation establishments. Some rural post offices are operated by subcontractors to the USPS. Large parcels are delivered by other entities in the transportation industries.
The global courier, express, and parcel (CEP) market was valued at about $430 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach about $1.1 trillion in 2034, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2%, according to Market.us. 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 2024.
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.
All types of mail and parcel delivery providers experience increasing competition from email and secure document transmission providers.
PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY
Major sources of revenue for the US Postal Service (USPS) include first-class mail (about 30%), shipping and package services (40%), and marketing mail (20%). Other services include delivery of international mail and periodicals (magazines and newspapers). Some postal establishments provide express delivery, logistics, and insurance and banking services.
Letter and small parcel receiving and delivery activities are highly manual. For the USPS, sorting processes are mechanized. Once collected, mail is trucked from community post offices to processing plants, where machines separate mail according to size and shape and orient parcels for postmarking, stamp cancellation-line printing, and optical address scanning. Each item receives a unique fluorescent bar code, as well as a printed bar code that indicates the specific delivery address. Letters are sorted into bins based on zip codes and flown or trucked to regional processing plants, where they are further sorted by carrier and delivery order and then distributed to individual post offices and carrier delivery vehicles.
Bulk transportation of mail is typically contracted out to freight transportation establishments. Some rural post offices are operated by subcontractors to the USPS. Large parcels are delivered by other entities in the transportation industries.
Table of Contents
- Industry Overview
- Quarterly Industry Update
- Business Challenges
- Business Trends
- Industry Opportunities
- Call Preparation Questions
- Financial Information
- Industry Forecast
- Web Links and Acronyms
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