Last year, a total of 63 million mailings were handled by shipping merchants supervised by SPRK, including traditional, express, courier postal services, as well as the delivery of the subscription press.
Compared with 2021, the total number of shipments fell 12.8%.
"The changes in the postal sector show that users have preferred to purchase goods on site, order them in internet shops and collect them in the shop or, for example, deliver the gift to the recipient on the spot. There was also a sharp drop in letter correspondence, possibly affected by the more active use of e-address for receiving or sending documents,” said Ivars Tauniņš, director of SPRK's Department of Electronic Communications and Postal Services.
Last year a total of 24.3 million parcel shipments were handled, of which more than half or 55% were domestic, while 25% were received from abroad and 19% were sent outside Latvia.
Compared to 2021, the total number of mail parcel shipments decreased by 1.3 million, or 5.2%, while domestic parcel shipments received by users at parcel machines or postal departments increased by 4.2%.
Fewer users subscribed to press, as evidenced by a decline in the number of subscribed shipments of 1.2 million, or 6.2%, compared with 2021 figures. This is partly due to competition with the digital era, concludes SPRK.
In 2022, services were provided by 62 postal operators, whose activities supervise SPRK. The number of postal providers fell 16.2% over the past three years. Last year, new market players entered the market, as well as some of the merchants ceased their activities.
The largest number of shipments in the parcel segment was provided by Omniva, DPD Latvija, Venipak, and Itella Logistics Ltd. in 2022. In the letter-post sector, the largest number of shipments were handled by Latvijas Pasts, providing 98% of the total number of letter letters.
Total revenue for postal operators amounted to €161.9 million in 2022. The majority of revenue (63%) was generated by express mail and 33% by traditional postal services.
