Across the globe, nationally controlled and privately run postal services have had to adjust to a world where we send fewer letters to one another. In many cases, the numbers are stark. From 2012 to 2021, letter revenue declined by over 40 percent for the United States Postal Service. In the UK, Royal Mail saw the volume of addressed letters decline by 20 percent over the 2020–21 financial year alone. Across the channel, France’s La Poste has had to grapple with an average annual 10.5 percent decline in mail volume from 2017 to 2021.

This new world poses some existential questions for these operators. If the main function of your business is the distribution and delivery of mail, and there’s simply less of it, you’re in a bit of a tricky situation. The explosion of parcel delivery, driven in part by Amazon but also the broader increase in online shopping, has saved many postal services across the globe. Total worldwide postal industry revenue actually grew by €20.5 billion in 2020 with increased parcel revenue accounting for the bulk of this expansion, up €19.3 billion as part of the ongoing structural shift from mail to parcels.

Despite this boom, intranational competition remains fierce and parcel operators are pursuing revenue diversification as a key way of ensuring their survival. The exact method of diversification varies across contexts. Poste Italiane, for instance, now gets over half its revenue through BancoPosta’s financial services. Postal operators in Finland, Japan, and France all provide some kind of care for the elderly. Deutsche Post and La Poste have huge international logistics operations through their subsidiaries, DHL and DPDgroup, as well as banking divisions that engage in an array of financial services.