ANACOM - Portuguese Communications Authority

04/02/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/02/2025 04:02

Parcel traffic increases by around 12% at the end of 2024

In the 4th quarter of 2024 (4Q2024), postal traffic totalled 129.8 million items, down by 1.9% on the same quarter last year.
Postal traffic consisted of approximately 66.7% letter mail, 7.6% editorial mail and 7.9% direct mail. Parcels accounted for 17.7% of total traffic, 2.2 percentage point (p.p.) more than in the 4th quarter of 2023.

Compared to the same period last year, direct mail and letter mail traffic declined by 7.5% and 4.6%, respectively, while parcel and editorial mail traffic increased by 11.7% and 0.9%, respectively.

Average revenue per item increased compared to the same quarter last year (+7.3%), continuing the growth trend that began in 2018. This quarter's increase is mainly due to the growth in letter mail revenue per item (+6.3%), influenced by the price increases promoted by CTT on 1 February 2024 and the change in the structure of traffic, namely the increase in the weight of parcels (+2.2 p.p. in traffic and +1.9 p.p. in revenue).

Compared to the same quarter last year, letter mail revenue increased by 1.4% (despite a 4.6% decrease in traffic) and accounted for 47.0% of total postal revenue (-1.8 p.p. compared to the same quarter last year), while parcel revenue, which increased by 9.4%, accounted for 49.0% of total revenue (+1.9 p.p. compared to the same quarter last year), surpassing letter mail revenue for the first time.

Universal service (US) postal services accounted for 75.0% of traffic and 48.1% of revenue. Compared to the 4th quarter of 2023, US traffic decreased by 3.3% and its weight in the total traffic decreased by 1.1 p.p., while US revenue increased by 6.3% and its weight in the total decreased by 0.4 p.p.

Grupo CTT had a share of around 80.4% of postal traffic, 1.4 p.p. less than in 4Q2023. As regards US traffic, Grupo CTT had a share of around 88.0%, 1.5 p.p. less than in the same quarter last year. On the other hand, Grupo CTT's share of parcels amounted to 44.5% (-0.2 p.p. compared to the 4th quarter of 2023).

In the 4th quarter of 2024, there were about 14.9 thousand employees involved in the operation of postal services, 2.1% less than in 4Q2023. The number of employees of Grupo CTT decreased by 6.1%, while the number of employees of other operators increased by 7.6%. At the end of the period, the share of employees of Grupo CTT reached 67.8% of the total (-2.9 p.p. compared to the same quarter last year).
The number of access points (+6.3%) and vehicles (+7.4%) increased compared to the same quarter last year, while the number of distribution centres stabilised.

The number of CTT post offices remained stable compared to the same quarter last year, while the number of post branches decreased by 0.7% (-13 post branches).

Consult the statistical report: