50% of first class intra-Europe mail delivered within 2 days

The International Post Corporation—a co-operative association of 24 national postal services—has reported that over half of all priority and first-class letter mail within Europe was delivered within two days.

78.7% was delivered within three days, and 94.4% within five days. The average delivery time was 2.7 days.

This is below the European Union’s objective of 85% of intra-Europe mail delivered within three days (its “speed objective”) and 97% within five days (its “reliability objective”).

Quotas, an independent research firm from Hamburg, Germany, conducted the research. Volunteers from all 28 EU member states, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Serbia, sent a total of around 62,000 test letters, 40% of which contained Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags.

Transit times were measured from the time of posting at the country of origin to delivery at the specific destination address.

Source: Post & Parcel

Header image: Samuel Zeller