The postal sector has increased its revenues in recent years due to the increase in e-commerce volume. Net sales revenues of the sector doubled on an annual basis as of the first half of 2023, reaching ₺25.3 billion. The number of people employed in the postal sector approached 100 thousand.
According to the information compiled from the Turkish Postal Sector Market Data Report covering the first half of 2023 published by the Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the number of operators authorized in the sector was 46, and 52 authorizations were given to these operators, 24 of which were national and 28 were local.
The number of communication messages in the sector was 220.3 million in the first 6 months of last year. It was noted that the share of intercity shipments in all communication shipments was 84.8% and constituted the majority of shipments. During this period, the provinces where the most communication shipments were delivered were Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa and Antalya, respectively.
The number of other postal items, excluding communication items and described as postal parcels or cargo, continued its increasing trend over the years and exceeded 598.1 million as of the first half of last year, increasing by 19% compared to the same period of the previous year.
The growth in e-commerce was reflected in the sector
In recent years, due to the increase in e-commerce volume, shipment volumes in the postal sector and, accordingly, the revenues of postal service providers have increased significantly.
Accordingly, the sector closed the first half of 2019 with a net sales income of ₺3.5 billion and the entirety with a net sales income of ₺7.7 billion. Net sales revenues of the sector increased to ₺13.1 billion in 2020, when an increase in e-commerce volume began to be seen with the Covid-19 epidemic. The increase momentum in revenues continued in the following years and increased to ₺18.1 billion in 2021 and ₺33.5 billion in 2022.
In the first half of last year, these revenues approximately doubled compared to the same period of the previous year and amounted to ₺25.3 billion.
While the increase in e-commerce volume in the last 5 years is also reflected in sector data, net sales revenues increased 7 times compared to the same period of 2019 as of the first half of last year.
Communication posts
The income from communication messages was recorded as ₺3.1 billion, with an increase of 61% on an annual basis. While the revenues in question were ₺1.2 billion each in 2019 and 2021, they increased to ₺2.6 billion in 2021 and ₺4.6 billion in 2022.
According to the shipping destinations, the biggest revenue in the “city”, “intercity” and “international” categories was obtained from intercity communication shipments. During this period, approximately 82.3% of the revenue from communication shipments was obtained from intercity and approximately 13.7% from intracity shipments.
Investment budget of service providers increased
Especially with the impact of the rapidly growing e-commerce sector due to the COVID-19 epidemic postal parcel/cargo revenues increased from ₺6.5 billion in 2019 to ₺11.9 billion in 2020, ₺15.4 billion in 2021, and ₺28.9 billion in 2022. In the first 6 months of last year, the income in question was ₺22.2 billion.
Approximately 72% of all postal cargo/parcel shipments were intercity shipments.
While the postal sector in Turkiye has gained great momentum in recent years, it has been observed that the budget allocated for investment by service providers has also increased in order to respond to this demand with the increase in postal traffic. While the total amount of investment made by postal service providers in the sector was around ₺880 million in 2019, this figure exceeded ₺1 billion 515 million in the first half of 2023.
A total of 9 thousand 915 postal agencies/branches provide service throughout Turkiye. While the number of personnel working in the sector was 83 thousand 857 as of the end of 2019, this number reached 97 thousand 573 in the first half of 2023.
Source: Trthaber / Prepared by Irem Yildiz