Keeping us posted

The Mail Show is the major event reviewing the state of the UK mail industry and the seventh such conference was held this week in central London. Generally speaking the picture was "cautiously encouraging" for Royal Mail's competitors.

Postcomm Chief Executive Sarah Chambers reported that the regulator had just licensed the 18th competitor to Royal Mail and that in name terms these 18 rivals now run from A (ANC Express) to Z (Zipmail).

She explained that Royal Mail made 1.2 billion access deliveries in 2005/06, compared to 87 million the previous year. In the five months to August 2006, access volumes have continued to grow, and latest figures show that access accounted for 10.5 % of Royal Mail’s total letters volume.

Competitor TNT was represented on the platform by CEO Nick Wells who suggested that his company would want to move beyond simply using Royal Mail's network through downstream access: "We will clearly want to have our own orange postmen on the streets". James Greenbury, CEO of DX/SMS, made it clear that his company wants to build an end to end network.

However, there was some concern about mail volumes in the UK. Volumes were down 1.1% last year. Direct mail, financial services, and transactional mail are all falling, but publishing and fulfillment are rising. Many contributors saw more scope for growth in direct mail, esecially if it was more targeted and innovative.

However, some international contributors reported declining mail volumes in their countries. Ireland - which already has half the mail volumes of the UK in per capita terms - is seeing serious decline in mail (10% in the last four years, perhaps because of the absence of post codes). France and Germany too are seeing a decline.