Portuguese express market ''to grow 8% this year''

The Portuguese courier and express market is to grow 8% this year, building upon similar annual growth over the past three years, according to new research.

Revenues, which grossed some EUR 506 million in 2005, should grow to around EUR 590 million at the end of 2007 if the forecast is correct.

International express deliveries in and from the country accounted for a quarter of all business in 2005, compared to 23% in 2004, said the study by DBK, the Iberian subsidiary of Italian business information group Databank.

Growth was being driven by “increasing externalisation of transport and logistics services in the B2B sector, the development of greater added-value services and the dynamic of electronic commerce,” DBK said.

But margins narrowed among express companies in Portugal, last year and the year before, the report said. This was due to high fuel costs which the carriers were not able to pass on to clients because of the sector’s intense competition.

There are some 200 express companies operating in Portugal, most of them small with less than 10 employees. Over half of business is done by foreign-owned carriers. Two-fifths of carriers are based in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley (Vale do Tejo) area, 30% in the north and 23% in the centre of the country,

A growing demand for quality and new services from clients would lead companies operating in Portugal to offer more global logistics in future, DBK said. Express carriers were also increasingly tailoring their services to specific sectors in order to respond better to customers’ needs.