Falling Letter Volumes - slowing down apparently

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Royal Mail delivers good news

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/bus ... 2013_07_21" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ROYAL MAIL is trying to lure City investors to back its planned £3bn float with a prediction that the fall in letter volumes will tail off.

It commissioned a report from PwC, the accountancy firm, ahead of plans to list on the London Stock Exchange later this year. PwC’s upbeat review predicts letter volumes will fall by 4% a year for the next decade. But this will be offset by Royal Mail’s burgeoning parcels arm, which is forecast to continue growing 3% a year until 2023.

PwC claims the rate of decline in letter volumes will slow over the period, which is sure to please potential investors. An improving economy will help slow down the fall because businesses will begin to spend more on direct mail, the report says.

Pay wall from this point:

[mandelsons_toenail]

How convenient

[Judgee]

Well I haven't seen mail volumes drop at all in the last few years and yet according to RM bosses its dropped 5% a year for the last decade.

Parcels growing 3% a year are they having a laugh? Make that 30% and they may be nearer the mark. Last Xmas I was getting 7 sacks full of parcels to deliver every day!!!

[baldrick]

As RM now calls anything over the size of a standard C5 letter a parcel, it's obvious that they will say that letter volumes are falling and parcel volumes are rising. And with online shopping growing parcel volumes are bound to grow. As the economy picks up there will be more advertising mail sent by businesses too.
As parcels are more difficult to sort (mainly manually) and deliver, RM should be increasing staffing, not cutting.

[ebbzie]

It wont stop the comment mails down extra lapsing

[fishtank]

An improving economy will help slow down the fall

All we need to do is find one of those......

[careful]

So what do door to door count as letters or parcels ,they have gone up at least 15% if it is letters , it over rides the drop in letter volumes, so if it is parcels you can add 15% to the underestimated figures on the growth off parcels

[El-Bandito]

Well I haven't seen mail volumes drop at all in the last few years and yet according to RM bosses its dropped 5% a year for the last decade.

Parcels growing 3% a year are they having a laugh? Make that 30% and they may be nearer the mark. Last Xmas I was getting 7 sacks full of parcels to deliver every day!!!

When I 1st started with RM we delivered a bag of mail in the morning a bundle of mail in your hand for the 2nd delivery. This was 1995. Now I am delivering 19 loops of mail in p&l with up to 8 households a week. All large packets that someone had a job doing. RM are telling me every month in the propaganda mag, sorry the courier. The mail is dying away it's frightening! ! There is a comment from after the 2nd WW.It states if you tell a lie long enough the populous will eventually believe it! !!!! This is the 21st century. We know the truth. And we know Who the liars are!!

[UnhappyGremlin]

The DOM in my office once gave us a lecture on falling mail volumes, specifically mentioning Specials that had dropped by a quarter. (From about 800 to 600 a day).
Won't shock anyone to know the basic point was about increasing other mails we could take.
He had figures, charts etc. Dead pleased with himself.
It was about 3 or 4 months after the introduction of tracked.
I pointed out that that particular service was new, and bringing in between 600 and 1000 a day. He wandered off talking to himself.

Reality of this situation is, whenever a particular product/service we have is falling numbers wise, they bang on about it relentlessly. They never make any mention of other products/services that have picked up the slack, as it isn't convenient for the message they wish to impart.
On this occasion, it's to persuade potential investors that RM is worth buying, and that it's revenues will be relatively steady from now on. Not suspicious timing at all.