New Zealanders spurning personal letter-writing quickest
New Zealanders are spurning personal letter-writing far more quickly than scribes in other countries – and NZ Post is feeling the pinch as a result.
The state-owned enterprise, which has a 95 per cent share of the domestic letter market, said yesterday that volumes of the humble stamped envelope had fallen 3.7 per cent in the second half of last year.
Up until then, volumes had fallen at an average of 1 per cent annually for several years as email gained in popularity.
NZ Post chief executive John Allen said that all postal companies globally were facing a challenge, but the local experience had been of a sharper decline than in other countries.
The decline was expected to continue and NZ Post hoped to arrest some of it by targeting direct marketing opportunities with businesses.
The cost of sending a standard letter will go up from 40c to 45c next month.
NZ Post will not reveal actual letter volumes, citing commercial sensitivity, but about 1 billion domestic items, including courier mail, are processed each year.
About 40 per cent of that is standard 40c post.
