The German courier, express and parcels (CEP) market is likely to grow only moderately in the 4% –5% range over the next few years. International business will continue to grow well while consumer
deliveries will generate the bulk of new volumes in the domestic sector. Those are the key findingsof the newly-published “CEP Market Fact Sheet Germany” from CEP-Research. The in-depth report alsocontains detailed market and competitor figures, profiles of the ten leading operators, and acomparative overview of their products.Germany reinforced its status as Europe’s largest CEP market with total revenues of just overEUR 9.2 billion in 2005, the latest report by the Hamburg-based market research company revealed.The deferred parcels segment, accounting for over 60% of market revenues, grew faster than theexpress sector. Confirming the recent trend towards more online-generated parcels business, theB2C/C2C (or “consumer deliveries”) segment has grown to 32% of the market. Domestic businessaccounted for about 75% of market revenues. “We are now expecting a 4.6% increase for the overallmarket in 2006, with the B2C/C2C segment generating somewhat higher growth,” commented RobertThyssen, CEP-Research manager.
In its medium-term forecast, CEP-Research predicted that the German market will growmoderately by 4.4% a year to reach total revenues of over EUR 11.4 billion in 2010. Internationalgrowth will outpace domestic market growth. Key factors driving additional volumes will be theemergence of Central and Eastern Europe as an important regional import and export market, andrising international trade with Asia. While competition in the B2B sector will intensify, domesticmarket growth is likely to be mostly generated by increasing demand in the B2C and C2C segments.
The “CEP Market Fact Sheet Germany” also contains detailed market share figures for the tenleading express and parcel companies, broken down by segment into express/deferred,international/domestic, and B2B/B2C/C2C. These figures show that the German market remainsrelatively fragmented, particularly in the express, domestic and B2B segments.
In terms of overall market shares, DHL remains the clear market leader ahead of DPD, Hermes,UPS, GLS and TNT. There is tight competition in the express segment where the four leadingoperators all have market shares in the 12% – 16% range. The international segment is led by DHL,TNT and UPS, while DHL, DPD and Hermes dominate the domestic and deferred market segments. Hermes,specialising in home deliveries, has grown fast over the last few years and won market share fromDHL in the B2C/C2C segments.
“DHL is still the market leader in all segments but is facing strong competition in manyareas,” explained Thyssen. “Competitors are expanding their domestic retail networks to targetsmall businesses and consumers, while extending their European delivery networks to profit from therising international volumes. Competition is likely to intensify further over the next few years.”
The report also contains profiles of the ten leading players in the German express andparcels market, and details their diverse products. These are then compared in terms of marketsegments. Other sections include overviews of the German economy and the country’s overalllogistics sector.
* The “CEP Market Fact Sheet Germany” is targeted at strategic decision-makers, salesexecutives and operational managers in international and regional express and parcel companies, aswell as the wider transport and logistics industry and other interested parties. The 28-page reportcan be ordered online under www.cep-research.com. An introductory price of EUR 495.00 appliesfor orders received by February 16, 2007. The price thereafter is EUR 550.00.
