DHL’s latest European parcel partners are expecting a surge in international business from cooperating with the German group, with An Post alone forecasting one million extra parcels a year.
DHL yesterday announced new partners in four European countries to extend its European parcel network to 26 countries, with the goal of complete European coverage by the end of 2018. The new partners are Irish postal operator An Post and Romanian firm Urgent Cargus along with (from November) Croatian Post and Bulgarian parcel service Rapido.
An Post said the new partnership was a “further step forward” in its pursuit of the growing e-commerce and parcels business and it estimates that “the new partnership will soon be responsible for nearly a million parcels coming into this country”.
Garrett Bridgeman, who heads An Post’s Parcels division, said: “Our new partnership with DHL gives us access to the DHL European network and strengthens our links to this growing e-commerce marketplace. The partnership demonstrates our strategy of refocusing our parcels business and aggressively pursuing new Irish and International e-commerce business.”
He declared: “DHL chose us as partners because we are the best in the business. Our reach and our network cannot be beaten. The service enhancements we recently introduced such as Saturday, evening deliveries, and secure location drop marked An Post apart as the best option for parcel customers in this country.”
Croatian Post said the DHL partnership will mostly focus on B2C deliveries of e-commerce orders and will enable it to improve service quality by providing consumers with faster and better deliveries and the possibility of online tracking in real time.
In addition, it marks “another important milestone” towards the implementation of the postal operator’s 2022 strategy, which focuses on expanding the logistics business, entering new markets and developing the core postal business.
Romanian partner Urgent Cargus was created in 2014 by the merger of Cargus, which investor Abris had acquired from DHL in 2013, and Urgent Curier, which Abris bought in 2014. Urgent Cargus is the market leader in Romania with a market share of about 32% and delivers more than 23 million shipments a year, according to Abris.
Bulgarian partner Rapido, founded in 2001, has expanded beyond the capital Sofia and developed a nationwide network. In 2016, the company delivered more than 3 million shipments.
Rapido managing director Radoslav Krumov commented: "Our membership of this pan-European network as the only partner for Bulgaria is strong recognition of everything we have built at Rapido. For us as one of the fastest growing courier companies in Bulgaria, the valuation of a leader in the industry with the experience and image of DHL Parcel is the best attestation of the quality of our services.
“More importantly, our Bulgarian clients will really benefit from proven standards and from the broadest possible courier structure in Europe, gaining access to a network of more than 50,000 offices.”
With the four new countries, the DHL Parcel Europe network now comprises 26 countries, including Germany. DHL Parcel has subsidiaries (including minority stakes) in 12 countries: UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, Spain and Portugal.
The remaining 13 countries are covered through partnerships, mostly with national postal operators: Ireland (An Post); Denmark and Norway (Norway Post/Bring); Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (Posti); Hungary (Magyar Posta), Slovenia (Pošta Slovenije), Croatia (Croatian Post), Romania (Urgent Cargus), Bulgaria (Rapido) and Russia (Russian Post).
The two major remaining markets without a formal partner include Italy and Switzerland while there are still gaps in parts of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.
