Swiss Post: one of the fastest and most reliable postal organisations
Delivery times
For years, Swiss Post has been one of the top postal organizations with the best delivery times for letters, parcels and international mail. The 2003 figures confirm this once again. The survey is conducted annually by independent institutes. Last year, 98 of 100 letters mailed reached their recipients on time (A Mail: 97.9percent, B Mail 98.2percent). The figures for parcels are similarly high (PostPac Priority: 97.3percent, PostPac Economy: 97.8percent). Swiss Post is also one of the leaders in cross-border mail: a Priority letter takes an average of 2.1 days to reach its destination in Europe (Switzerland and other European countries).
Swiss Post processes about 17 million letters and 500,000 parcels each day – and provides top-quality service. Last year, 97.9percent of A Mail and 98.2percent of B Mail was delivered on time, in other words: around 98 of 100 letters reach their destination within the usual deadline. Delivery times for domestic letters have remained high for years (for an overview of delivery times please see the table at the end of this press release). A Mail and B Mail surveys are conducted annually by the market research institute IHA-GfK. For this purpose, some 72,000 A Mail and 39,000 B Mail test letters are dispatched each year.
Fast parcels
Swiss Post also ranks highly for parcel delivery: 97.3percent of PostPac Priority and 97.8percent of PostPac Economy parcels reached their recipients on time. The parcel delivery times were measured in conjunction with the University of Basel. Each month some 300 parcels are tested. The institute that conducts the survey for PostParcel and the procedure it uses were approved last year by the Federal Office of Metrology and Accreditation (metas), thus guaranteeing high reliability and objectivity. PostParcel also offers a "Track & Trace" service: Swiss Post customers can monitor their parcels' progress on the Internet at all times (www.post.ch/trackandtrace, cf. under "See also") and call up the delivery time.
Out in front with cross-border mail too
Swiss Post International – the international unit of Swiss Post – handles well over 200 million international letters each year. Here too, Swiss Post has been one of the fastest and most reliable postal companies for years. Priority letters handed in for mailing to Europe or delivered in Switzerland by Swiss Post take an average of 2.1 days to reach their destination. The quality of cross-border European letter mail has been tested by the International Post corporation (IPC) since 1994 using the UNEX survey (the high UNEX average is 2.2 days). 18 European members of the IPC take part in the UNEX measurement. All 23 IPC members (besides the 18 European postal organizations taking part, Cyprus, Hungary, Australia Post, Canada Post and the United States Postal Service also belong to the IPC) process some 65percent of worldwide postal traffic.
Overview of delivery times
Delivery times for domestic letters
A Mail B Mail
2003 97,9 % 98,2 %
2002 97,3 % 98,1 %
2001 97,6 % 98,4 %
2000 97,1 % 97,9 %
1999 96,6 % 98,2 %
Delivery times for domestic parcels
PostPac Priority PostPac Economy
2003 97,3 % 97,7 %
2002* 96,3 % 98,4 %
* Parcel delivery times have been measured on an independent basis since 2002.
Cross-border Priority letter delivery times
(import and export)
Priority letter UNEX*
2003 2,1 days 2,2 days
2002 2,1 days 2,2 days
2001 2,2 days 2,3 days
2000 2,1 days 2,3 days
1999 2,1 days 2,3 days
* Average for the 18 European IPC members
(according to the UNEX study, no direct comparisons with other postal organizations may be published).
