Mail start-up iq letternet targets 100 million letters in 2007
A new postal operator, iq letternet, aims to become one of the three leading postal operators in Germany competing with Deutsche Post. The privately-owned company is currently setting up a nationwide network of delivery partners and will use UPS for intra-regional linehaul transport.
Based near Düsseldorf, iq letternet plans to despatch 100 million letters this year which would establish it among the three leading postal operators in Germany in terms of volumes. “Each of our private delivery partners will receive more than 10,000 letters a day on average from iq letternet by the end of this year,” said Rainer Pliska, one of the three managing directors of the company.
The six companies that own iq letternet, which include several direct mailing firms, handle about 170 million letters from customers such as the German airline LTU, the Galeria Kaufhof department store chain and allkauf supermarket group.
Volumes are presently delivered mostly by some 60 regional postal delivery firms and the rest by Deutsche Post. Volumes will be gradually transferred to the new delivery network, with about 30 million pieces planned for this year, to ensure that quality levels are maintained.
To secure a long-term cooperation with its delivery partners, iq letternet plans to set up a joint stock company in the first half of the year which all its partners can take shares in. Their participation will guarantee the reservation of their delivery area exclusively for themselves. At the same time, special shareholder agreements will ensure that competitors will not be able to enter the network by buying delivery partners.
Iq letternet claimed that it is the only postal operator alongside Deutsche Post in Germany that can receive letters as electronic data, print them centrally or decentrally, and then handle delivery. Letters are handed over pre-sorted to UPS for transport to the respective local postal delivery partner. This process chain halves the usual production and distribution times for a mass mailing. The company is also planning to open a central mail sorting centre in Darmstadt, central Germany.
The company said last autumn that it is aiming for annual revenues of euro 500 million by 2010.
