LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apex Insight believes that the European parcels market is now well in excess of €50bn in value. Market growth in recent years has come from increased demand from home shopping, which is increasing at double-digit rates across Europe.
Increases in home shopping volumes have encouraged innovation – in promoting the development of processes to improve the final mile delivery experience, from defined time-slots, to text messages and smartphone apps to establishment of parcel shop chains. UPS has launched its MyChoice service, DPD operates Follow My Parcel and Predict and the Royal Mail has now rolled out text messaging, first trialled for 2012 Olympics tickets. Locker networks are being rolled out: DHL’s Packstation is the most extensive but others, such as those of InPost, are rolling out across several European countries. Having acquired Kiala, UPS is building its parcel shop network, following DPD, GLS and Hermes.
The gradual trend for the industry to consolidate as independents are bought up by the larger players to fill specific gaps in networks has continued. Nevertheless, the market remains competitive at both country and European levels. Analysis of company revenues by country suggests that the leading players: the German, French and UK post offices (Deutsche Post, La Poste, Royal Mail) plus their wider European networks (DHL, DPD, GLS) and the integrators (UPS, DHL, FedEx, TNT) have a combined share of almost 60% of the total market. This leaves a significant proportion still in the hands of smaller national post offices and independent operators.
Expectations of a more positive economic outlook than in the recent past as well as continued growth in home shopping bode well for the market and are reflected in our market growth forecasts for the period up to 2018.
The full market report: “European Parcels: Market Insight Report 2014”, which includes insights from interviews with customers, profiles of the leading players, as well as growth forecasts for the market and its key drivers, is available from apex-insight.com/research.
About Apex Insight
Apex Insight is an independent provider of research, analysis and consulting services covering business services markets in the UK and Europe.
